Reading gave me great comfort and pleasure. When I started being able to write, around seven or eight, I wanted to be able to do that myself, to create that other world.

I think the major device for me is that narrator's voice. I'm always trying to find a different kind of form to tell whatever story it is, and I wish that weren't so, because it drives me crazy.

I still do believe that form and content are very much related. I think throwing away some of the rule books on that is a good thing.

For me, the experience of not living in America was recognizing that I was American. You don't think about yourself being so culturally encoded, so nationally stamped; you don't discover that when you're a tourist for a month. You see how you reflect the place you're from. When I came back from living in Europe, I was very struck by how I didn't see America as the center of the world in the same way. It's very easy to slip back because America is so powerful. But any place you live is the center of the world.

My friends and I sometimes laugh at each other that there is so much maintenance of a body. I paid no attention when I was younger.

Nonfiction gives you subjects. Writing fiction I can have more fun, but I have to invent my subject.

You know how some people are upwardly mobile? I'm sort of downwardly mobile in the publishing world, because of my sales figures and also because of the kind of books I write. Everything really counts on sales. I started out with a bigger press, my first few books. But I've always done some things with independent and small presses and small magazines and I always will.