I have sparred with commenters as a music writer (on The Rumpus, among other places, see e.g., my review about Taylor Swift), and that was plenty of training!

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.

I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket.

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.

Tangled in one another's arms and nine times out of ten the things you think about a person make it impossible to touch them.

I believe that God locates himself at the spot where you recognize your own fallibility....And the paradox of it all has been that whenever I give up I seem to do better.

I published a bunch of my older books in e-book format with Open Road, which is great and has tons of hard to find older books available there.