If somebody says your story is only published because you look nice in the photo, that maybe spurs you on to write.

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.

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

I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but thought 'Husbands and Wives' was great.

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

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.

If somebody says your story is only published because you look nice in the photo, that maybe spurs you on to write.