I Have My Own Dying

Good Fiction Makes Me Turn Off All The Other Parts Of My Brain, So That I Become Quiet And Submissive, Entirely At The Mercy Of The Work At Hand.

My Hair Would Continue To Gray, And Then One Day, It Would Fall Out Entirely, And Then, On A Day Meaninglessly Close To The Present One, Meaninglessly Like The Present One, I Would Disappear From The Earth. And All These Emotions, All These Yearnings, All These Data, If That Helps To Clinch The Enormity Of What I'm Talking About, Would Be Gone. And That's What Immortality Means. It Means Selfishness. My Generations Belief That Each One Of Us Matters More Than You Or Anyone Else Would Think.

My Parents Were Kind Enough To Spend Hours Talking To Me.

Don't Be Pretentious Is My First Advice To Young Writers. This Is The Big Problem - Just Because You're Getting An Mfa Doesn't Mean You Have To Write For The Academy. Be True To Your Personality. Don't Temper Your Personality Down With Words. Don't Build Defensive Fortresses Around Yourself With Words - Words Are Your Friends.

My Parents Were Constantly Afraid They Would Lose Their Jobs. The Idea That We Were Always A Paycheck Away From Disaster Was Drilled Into Me.