I didn't intentionally emplace the raw material needed for political/allegorical readings into any of the first drafts, but sooner or later I saw it coming, and I did intentionally not cut it from some of the final drafts. In other words, I'm not particularly interested in encouraging readers to read certain stories that way, but I want to make sure that route's accessible should anyone be so inclined.

The most basic organizing principle was pretty straightforward, and is frankly pretty common: the shorter of what are by my lights the two most engaging stories goes first, the longer of the two goes at the end, and everything else goes in the middle.

You know how some people say that they can only read one story a day from this or that collection? If that's simply the result of the great tension and power condensed into each piece, all well and good.

If you're paying attention to human interactions - to the gap between who we are and who we think we are, or the gap between what happened and what we remember - you're going to end up thinking (obliquely or otherwise) about what it means to act ethically, and I think that's all to the good.

I didn't intentionally emplace the raw material needed for political/allegorical readings into any of the first drafts, but sooner or later I saw it coming, and I did intentionally not cut it from some of the final drafts. In other words, I'm not particularly interested in encouraging readers to read certain stories that way, but I want to make sure that route's accessible should anyone be so inclined.

I start every first draft with voice rather than theme or image or even character as such, so it isn't like I'm ever rubbing my hands, cackling, "The dad is really going to take it on the chin in this one!" Not in terms of any given story, and certainly not in terms of the collection as a whole.

We should absolutely be concerned with ethical questions - to exactly the same degree as everyone else. It's never my intention to sneak any kind of sermon into a story - I've got no business preaching, and besides, that kind of thing plays poorly in fiction, always has.