The dead are celebrated. The dead are loved. They give something to the living. Once you put something into the ground, Doctor, you always know where to find it.

For me it was a lot harder to come to terms with the death of my grandfather than it was to come to terms with what's happened to the former Yugoslavia.

My road to publishing actually came through a colleague who connected me to my agent, and the faculty at Cornell was very supportive.

I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.

Kelly Link's prose is conveyed in details so startling and fine that you work up a sweat just waiting for the next sentence to land. This is why we read, crave, need, can't live without short stories.

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

In the mess of moving from place to place, I skipped two grades in the space of one year.