If you wrote about sex the way Jim [Salter] writes about sex in nonfiction, you would be a sociopath.

In general, short stories are less read than before, they're less published than before and, not surprisingly, they're less taught than before.

I love having people around who are better interviewers than I am and who can make the time to do a really great job. All of the interviews that we've published are with people who really interest me.

I’m a reader who uses fiction as a way of worrying about life.

Chekhov's stories are about the moment that a life goes off the rails and the price that will be paid - forever. That's a typical Chekhov story for you. Something that you're used to lying in bed worrying about at four in the morning, before you have the psychic defenses to kid yourself and tell yourself to get up and shower and go to the office.

Names don't matter, CVs don't matter, previous publications don't matter at all, because, in a certain way, the ideal is for someone to come completely out of left field. And still, of course, it is hard to say no to a writer who matters a lot to you and who you know matters to your readers.

When I was a book editor, I got used to being told that my tastes were dark or edgy. These are not words that would've occurred to me, but I was told that enough that I have to believe it's true - that I like things that some other people find off-putting or upsetting. My job is to publish stuff that I really, really care about. That might mean that it doesn't sit well with everybody.