For whatever reason, thus far it's been important to me not to write that kind of collection. Which means that I've spent months playing tic-tac-note…

- Roy Kesey

What I like about organizing things that way is that each story gets nearly full reign over its own space, but all of them are hung on a single strin…

- Roy Kesey

You know how some people say that they can only read one story a day from this or that collection? If that's simply the result of the great tension a…

- Roy Kesey

Realism's anxieties are not my anxieties, but I think I've had its tools close at hand all along. It may be that I'm reaching for them more often tha…

- Roy Kesey

Some writers keep a tighter rein on that than others. For short story collections I'm definitely in the loose-rein camp.

- Roy Kesey

I didn't intentionally emplace the raw material needed for political/allegorical readings into any of the first drafts, but sooner or later I saw it …

- Roy Kesey

The most basic organizing principle was pretty straightforward, and is frankly pretty common: the shorter of what are by my lights the two most engag…

- Roy Kesey

Very often, or perhaps more often, and even in very good collections - even in some of the best collections ever written, I would argue - it's becaus…

- Roy Kesey

I start every first draft with voice rather than theme or image or even character as such, so it isn't like I'm ever rubbing my hands, cackling, "The…

- Roy Kesey