People have to follow their own strangeness. The minute they start making their own vision of the world flattened out so everyone can read it, they lose. I encourage people to be as awkward and odd on the page to capture their own way of seeing the world and not trying to see the world for other people.

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

I think some writers should wait for something to say.

I'm pretty tight - I rewrite, in some cases, 70 to 80 times before I show it to people.

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 so many years living in one place and imaging another.

I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's done.