I remember three- and four-week-long snow days, and drifts so deep a small child, namely me, could get lost in them. No such winter exists in the record, but that's how Ohio winters seemed to me when I was little - silent, silver, endless, and dreamy.

Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn't, but they do, and a lot.

I love writing traditional magazine pieces, and especially their breadth of reporting and the deliberateness of the writing.

Why, I wonder, should the popularity of a news story matter to me? Does it mean it's a good story or just a seductive one?

My inspiration is really very simple: I'm struck by things that I want to know more about. I really do react just as a curious person: who is this person? What's the story behind this situation? Why do people like this or dislike this thing?

I'm always mystified by the day-to-day workings of entities like Twitter that provide framework but not content, but I suppose it could be compared to the U.S. Postal Service, which manages to keep a lot of people employed doing lots of stuff other than writing letters.

Writing about unknown people means I spend a lot of time arguing to the reader about why it's worth knowing about them. That's challenging, but then the piece is pure discovery.