If a novel or a story works, you don't stop thinking about it; it doesn't truly end.

But this is exactly why I read--and don't belong to a book group--because reading is the most individual thing there is. Why collectivize it? Didn't we have enough bad English teachers in school? Crowd sourcing and literature shouldn't mix.

I used to be surprised and a little annoyed when characters would reappear in my mind, itching to be in another story. Now I realize it's part of the deal, that you create these people out of thin air but then, if you do it right, they actually live.

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.

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.

One story I've been trying to write for years, and haven't been able to finish, is about a face I saw, just a glimpse of a face, in a max security prison in North Carolina. I'm still trying to understand what I saw in that guy's face.