Birth: January 21, 1897 Death: November 6, 1979
I'll take a [Pavel] Chekhov comparison any day! He's of course one of the great masters at the short story form, and has helped define traditional co….
That particular story ["The Pyramid and the Ass"] was written during the dark days of the Bush years. George W. Bush had just been "re-elected" (or e….
One of my central approaches to writing speculative fiction is to take an absurd situation, which we presently feel is normal, and then push it to an….
I'm just worried that the technology I invented in that story ["The Pyramid and the Ass" ] will become real, and George W. Bush will be able to clone….
We shuffle out of office buildings after being laid-off by draconian bosses; we sit on hold for ten minutes only to be told by a supervisor that the ….
Parents are already telling their kids about falling in love online - there's nothing "frightening" or "dystopian" about this. So, the critique doesn….
Wit and humor seem to always factor into this - there's a tongue-in-cheek tone you get when you take on a formalist story - because there's an inhere….
I'm a big fan of Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco's book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, where they visit what they call The Sacrifice Zones of Americ….
"Rocket Night" is my take on bullying culture. I think this is getting better, thanks to the anti-bullying work being done by my generation. But ther….
David Foster Wallace was a brilliant experimentalist who I deeply admire. His ability to do formalism helped me understand how to tackle stories like….
While my stories are experimental, they're also very traditional. I love the works of the great Russian writers like [Pavel] Chekhov and [Lev] Tolsto….
[George W.] Bush's presidency was one of the great nightmares of my life to date..
What is the emotion of an empty inbox? An unliked Post? An ignored dating app message? I think there's a great loneliness that much of our society is….
The environmental catastrophes we're presently seeing are considered "normal" though they're horrific. Fracking has made drinking water flammable, fa….
In the story ["The Pyramid and the Ass"] there's this war against the so-called Buddhist Terrorists. As we find out, they're not really terrorists at….
It's true, I do love the semi-epiphany. For example, in "Fall Line," the character's final decision is less epiphany than imbecility. He makes a choi….
The problems we have with our current technology often reveal our own human foibles, and it's these new emotions of cyberspace which reveal our strug….
I think the challenge for humans remains the same as it has always been: to learn the skills of kindness, compassion, and love. Without these sacred ….
However, in my fiction, I want to give an even further warning of where we're heading. And so, in "Heartland," you have people selling off their tops….
Presently we're seeing these kinds of battles for our most vulnerable students - such as Trans and LGBTQ students. You have a lot of conservative par….
I realize that I've had a very idyllic vision of what spirituality looks like. Honestly, most of Western culture has an idyllic and simplified idea o….