I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.

I think, in general, it's better not to respond to reviews of your work.

I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.

You thought that you were the permanent part of your own experience, the net that held it all together - until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another so quickly over time that the buildings and the trees and even the pavement turned out to have more substance than you did.

I like it when someone gives me a new book of poetry by a poet I haven't read.

Alice Munro is a particular kind of short story writer in that she writes long, character-driven short stories.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.