A lot of my students have been quite notable. Notable in both the personal sense - people who have changed my life - and notable in that many have gone on to enormous success in their writing careers. Whether or not I had a lot to do with those success stories, I'm very proud and happy for my former students getting on the map.

It took me seven years of writing before I published my first story. And then, the publications trickled in over the next five years.

I don't teach narrative theory by itself anymore, but I kind of use it when critiquing student manuscripts. So, it works its way in there, whether I like it or not.

I like a text that reminds the reader its a text sometimes.

I think the act of lying can be separated from the genre of memoir. Though often times, people are unaware of their own subjectivity.

The least trusted testimony in a court of law is eyewitness testimony. We are simply not good reporters of facts that happen to us, or in front of us. But that's not the same as knowingly lying.

Some of the biggest challenges were, page after page, standing naked in front of the reader.