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.

I write when I have something to say and not when I don't. My time is better spent if I know I have nothing to say. I don't consider it writer's block; I just don't have anything to say.

I've spent so many years living in one place and imaging another.

I try not to read my own books just because I would rather read somebody else.

We don't want emotion handed to us - that's not emotion. You have to build and come from the reader's soul.

Rarely is the pain of losing someone expressed with such directness, energy, and, yes, humor. The grief in Evan Kuhlman'sWolf Boyis palpable, and so is the flawed, honest humanity of his characters. Here is real loss and somehow, real catharsis.

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.