It's September 21st, a day I love for the balance it carries with it.

I'm about going out in the world and noticing stuff, and going home and writing it down, and putting it next to other stuff I've noticed and seeing what happens.

It's September 21st, a day I love for the balance it carries with it.

Sometimes I'm writing for magazines on assignment, but the university has to be patient with me. I mean, during the ten-week periods that I have a class, I'm there every Thursday night or whatever it is, but sometimes that's all I'm there, because I'm somewhere else the rest of the time.

Traveling is my priority, because it drives the writing, so I teach around the travel, and sometimes the travel is the teaching.

For me, the shaping of the story is more important than accuracy.

Being in the presence of the "other" seems to show me who I am in a way that is really important to me. I feel radically more comfortable in Laos, say, than I do in Pennsylvania.