But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.

I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing a story. I also read a lot of diaries and oral histories.

Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader.

I think that's what I love about writing, is the ability to try to, in a sense, take a vacation from yourself and try to enter the sensibility of another time, another character, another place.

It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start

I think writing a poem is like being a greyhound. Writing a novel is like being a mule. You go up one long row, then down another, and try not to look up too often to see how far you still have to go.

As I get older I find myself thinking it all begins with Shakespeare.