I had written about a small hamlet upstate, and had been called into a meeting about my story, which, as it turned out, had upset a lot of people.

I went back into the older stories and reworked them, because I became a better writer over the years and could spot flaws. I loved having another chance to make them stronger, and to bring them closer to me, made them less like a greatest hits compilation, and more like something written in the same extended burst.

I'll write about California someday, I imagine, but I don't know when.

Of course I'd sometimes have characters from downstate living upstate, but it took a while for me to start writing about where I grew up.

My characters tend, if wounded, to be emotionally resourceful. Often they're in that way station between when loss happens and when it can be fully comprehended. In the meantime they're fighting to get something back, and occasionally they prevail in surprising ways.

I think it's probably better to make a region your own, and then maybe you can go somewhere else, but a lot of great writers have stuck to one region.

I think the second, or outsider's, perspective can come as you layer a story. It's as though you've grabbed a secondary character and asked them, "What do you make of this guy?" and the hope is that the answer surprises you as the writer.