I am a better writer for having fewer demons, and I am more curious about the world and the people in it. So those of you thinking you might need your demons in order to be creative: I beg to differ.

Maybe when I'm sixty-five I'll talk about my literary life.

The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice.

I think first-person narrators should be complex, because otherwise the first-person is too shallow and predictable. I like a first-person narrator who can't totally be trusted.

Impotence, fetishism, bisexuality, and bondage are all facts of life, and our fiction should reflect that.

The Ice Storm, because of the movie, has had, or is to have, a vigorous life in other cultures.

I have admired Melissa Pritchard's writing for several years now for its wisdom, its humble elegance, and its earthy comedy.