Dad Is Always Hiding In

I Have Committed Many Sins In My Life. This Precise Sin-the Sin Against Poets-is Without Absolution.

The Writer Isn't Made In A Vacuum. Writers Are Witnesses. The Reason We Need Writers Is Because We Need Witnesses To This Terrifying Century.

What We Call Fiction Is The Ancient Way Of Knowing, The Total Discourse That Antedates All The Special Vocabularies....fiction Is Democratic, It Reasserts The Authority Of The Single Mind To Make And Remake The World.

I Like Commas. I Detest Semi-colons — I Don’t Think They Belong In A Story. And I Gave Up Quotation Marks Long Ago. I Found I Didn’t Need Them, They Were Fly-specks On The Page.

I Knew He Was Unreliable, But He Was Fun To Be With. He Was A Child’s Ideal Companion, Full Of Surprises And Happy Animal Energy. He Enjoyed Food And Drink. He Liked To Try New Things. He Brought Home Coconuts, Papayas, Mangoes, And Urged Them On Our Reluctant Conservative Selves. On Sundays He Liked To Discover New Places, Take Us On Endless Bus Or Trolley Rides To Some New Park Or Beach He Knew About. He Always Counseled Daring, In Whatever Situation, The Courage To Test The Unknown, An Instruction That Was Thematically In Opposition To My Mother’s.