City Life Is No Life For A

The Idea That The Creative Endeavor And Mind-altering Substances Are Entwined Is One Of The Great Pop-intellectual Myths Of Our Time. Substance Abusing Writers Are Just Substance Abusers — Common Garden Variety Drunks And Druggies, In Other Words. Any Claims That The Drugs And Alcohol Are Necessary To Dull A Finer Sensibility Are Just The Usual Self-serving Bullshit. I've Heard Alcoholic Snowplow Drivers Make The Same Claim, That They Drink To Still The Demons.

I Have Never Felt Like I Was Creating Anything. For Me, Writing Is Like Walking Through A Desert And All At Once, Poking Up Through The Hardpan, I See The Top Of A Chimney. I Know There's A House Under There, And I'm Pretty Sure That I Can Dig It Up If I Want. That's How I Feel. It's Like The Stories Are Already There. What They Pay Me For Is The Leap Of Faith That Says: 'if I Sit Down And Do This, Everything Will Come Out Okay.'

In Many Ways, Eulah-beulah Prepared Me For Literary Criticism. After Having A Two-hundred-pound Babysitter Fart On Your Face And Yell Pow!, The Village Voice Holds Few Terrors.

I Did Spend Years As An Addict, So I Know That World, Although I Wish I Didn't.

I Have The World's Best Job. I Get Paid To Hang Out In My Imagination All Day.