I'm constantly trying to figure out how to crack that mystery; how to make a novel that has a sense of immediacy of a short story. I try to do that and I'll try it again, but I'll never get it.

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

As a professor I can't teach writing.

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

Maybe my work is somewhat divided into family stories, things I know intimately, and then everybody else in the world - the strangers who I am totally fascinated with.

Actually, you’re not famous at all. Maybe you’ll get some traction after you’re dead?

I usually have a location and then I put the character there. I love place names. I think I'm tricking myself by being so specific - it suddenly becomes real to me. Just because I say it's Chicago, Illinois doesn't mean it's true, but place names sort of make me grounded and then I can put some people there.