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.

In America you make your plans and then they happen.

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

I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.

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.

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.