There's a great Anton Chekhov quote. He says, "The Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living." That scene has always been something that I have held dear. When something happens, the first thing you want to do is tell it. That's almost more exciting. It's almost simultaneous with the experience; you are already telling something incredible while it's happening. The stories that everybody carries around and repeats, I am really interested in that.

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.

I think what I'm after, a lot of the time, is just honesty. What accounts for the fact that the stories we tell ourselves - the story we carry around and think of most often - are the dark ones? Maybe we have to wander around in the darkness to understand it?

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

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

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

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.