I usually meditate and I call my spirit allies - anyone in the spirit world that I've got connections with. Even in the spirit world you need connections!

This is the age of fear and so many of us feel afraid to speak out about what has happened to our lives in the wake of 9/11. Television promotes the world as a scary place for the United States and this justifies peeling away every element of privacy we had before. The media is monopolized so we don't even hear a lot of dissent about this new era.

I began writing as an experimental writer.

I am not in touch with other writers. I don't have very much contact with other writers. I don't get invited to these things or I don't go to them. I hate panels. I speak to librarians and to conferences of English teachers. That's what I do: teachers and librarians. And high school kids.

To tell you the truth, I think it's about that we shouldn't get our driver's licenses till real late in life.

Now I feel life is really short and I have to take care of things.

The ability to be present with every single person and engage was a great model for me of the work that a writer needs to do. Writers, living or dead, still guide me in many ways.