It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.

Perhaps that is why the novel flourished in England. You had these communities that would stay put and people would see one another all the time and cause one another to change and have the opportunity to observe the changes over time.

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

Want! You must want something. What do you want?

I teach one semester a year, and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester, a writing workshop for older students in their late 20s and early 30s, people in our graduate program who are already working on a manuscript and trying to bring it to completion.

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

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.