Part of being a writer is feeling that constant dissatisfaction, thinking about what else you could do, and also knowing when it's time to leave a project.

Even in so-called realist or conventional writing there can be defamiliarization.

Sometimes you just feel like you could work forever on something and never know when it's done.

I find myself writing protagonists who do feel pretty cut off from others but who want to make connections and aren't very good at it.

I am fascinated by tiny, incremental changes, almost imperceptible shifts in how people orient themselves in the world, because those are in some ways the most hopeful.

In my short stories there's a lot of focus on people successfully and not successfully responding to some sorts of discomforts or instabilities.

Another obligation that I have as a teacher is to make available to students a range of options and devices and approaches, rather than saying "well here's one way to do it and that's the only way that's good."