I find that biographical material holds me back, hampers my creative process, cramps my imagination.

How can you teach someone to be creative? You have to create yourself.

I was always creatively stubborn, adverse to editing by others, and wanted to use the kind of Ukrainian we spoke among ourselves rather than the more artificial prescribed literary Ukrainian. The problem was the greatest in prose, where editors would change my language because "it sounded better this way." My poetry they left alone probably out of deference to that hallowed genre.

It is true that I didn't write any poetry between 1995 and 2011. The reason for this was probably because I had stayed away from fiction for so long and couldn't tear myself away from it.

That is one more reason why I write in English only right now. I prefer writing in the language I hear around me for the people by whom I am surrounded.

I think I view myself primarily as a fiction writer. Poetry is more of a "hobby," a time of rest from the hard work of writing fiction.

I am uneasy about the practice of other people telling you how to write. This is especially true for beginners who haven't yet developed their style and their writer's persona and are easily pushed off the course.