Realism Is To Fiction What

Now I Began To Understand Art As A Kind Of Black Box The Reader Enters. He Enters In One State Of Mind And Exits In Another. The Writer Gets No Points Just Because What's Inside The Box Bears Some Linear Resemblance To "real Life" -- He Can Put Whatever He Wants In There. What's Important Is That Something Undeniable And Nontrivial Happens To The Reader Between Entry And Exit.

I Love Story-writing Because I Can (more Or Less, On Occasion) Actually Do It. That's Really The Truth. I Like The Idea That A Story Is Sort Of A Site For Making Cool Language Effects - A Site For Celebrating Language, And, Therefore, The World. And The Brevity Is Part Of The Challenge. I Like Stories Because I Get Them - I Know How To Make Beauty, Or Something Like Beauty, In That Mode.

The Artist's Job, I Think, Is To Be A Conduit For Mystery. To Intuit It, And Recognize That The Story-germ Has Some Inherent Mystery In It, And Sort Of Midwife That Mystery Into The Story In Such A Way That It Isn't Damaged In The Process, And May Even Get Heightened Or Refined.

I Have Lunch, Flirt With Some Local Grandmothers, Undercut My Flirting By Crotching Myself On The Corner Of A Table As I Leave. -- "the Great Divider

I Know What It Feels Like To Be In That Middle And Lower-middle Class, And Feel Like The Culture Is Passing You By; It Translates Into A Great Sense Of Personal Frustration That Can Then Morph Into Political Frustration.