Many writers write across difference of one kind or another. Sometimes the difference is large and recognizable: gender, or race, or religion, or sex….

I have a sustained interest in frippery. I can't refute the monster accusation, either. Some writers are awful on the page and kind in person. More o….

I was fortunate to be at that school in an era in which encounters between students and teachers were encouraged; there were a number of teachers who….

It is always sort of unnerving to hear from people who've read my books. I'm not reading any of the reviews and most of my friends haven't read it - ….

I think I'm a reporter's editor. Being a good reporter is a specific skill, one I admire and don't possess myself - I appreciate people who know how ….

Witing is essentially interior work, and many writers are interior personalities. Having a job forces you out of the world of your work, and into the….

The big characters who occupy science, especially modern science, are all "off" in fundamental ways. I don't think that genius goes hand in hand with….

I'm not sure a person ever really reveals the whole of himsels or herself to another person, and I'm not sure we should. Or rather, just because you ….

As with editing, I think my strength as a writer is structure. It's not a skill that's much discussed when we discuss fiction, or not as much as lang….

I've never really understood the desire to be immortal myself. The idea of both wanting to live forever in some form and wanting to stay young foreve….

Health insurance, which is exceedingly difficult to secure as an individual in New York. Obamacare, while certainly better than nothing, is pretty aw….

When you're young, your perception of what it means to be a writer is often less about the writing and more about what seems to be the accompanying l….

I credit my parents for many things that had never seemed remarkable when I was growing up, and one of those things is how nonthreatened they were by….

When you're 21 you think, "Old people sound like this. Old people think like this." I don't think my ideas about aging and about eternal life changed….

Does people not asking me about Asian American literature mean they don't see it as its own literary tradition? I certainly believe in it as its own ….

When you don't have to depend upon your creative work for money, you'll never really have to compromise... Knowing that is hugely liberating as well ….