One of the last courses I taught was on the Russian short story, which I love.

One of the last courses I taught was on the Russian short story, which I love.

I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.