I'm a fierce editor! I don't edit out things that I began by saying, usually. The editing is on the micro level - a comma here, a word there.

Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer.

Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to people - or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original.

I can talk for a long time only when it's about something boring.

I don't pare down much. I write the beginning of a story in a notebook and it comes out very close to what it will be in the end. There is not much deliberateness about it.

To be simple, I would say a story has to have a bit of narrative, if only "she says," and then enough of a creation of a different time and place to transport the reader.

No one is calling me. I can’t check the answering machine because I have been here all this time. If I go out, someone may call while I’m out. Then I can check the answering machine when I come back in.