I beat a story to within an inch of its life - that's when I know its done. Not before, not after.

I've spent a lot of time in prisons, first doing legal work and later, teaching.

Everybody, doesn't matter who you are, escapes time. And for me, nothing is stranger than the thought that kids are just kids. Nobody is just anything. Whether you are eight or eighty, you've got your own unique take on how weird this world is.

What you can do with a short story that you can't do with a novel is punch someone in the gut, in the best of ways.

A collection, for me, is a book of very diverse stories that somehow speak to each other, across wide geography, across time, years, decades.

My characters tend to be people who are looking back on a life lived, their joys, their regrets.

As a professor I can't teach writing.