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

I think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories.

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

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.

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