Come On, Is Your Heart A Sponge

I Am Very Interested In Place, And The Influences Of Place On Characters.

Everything Necessary To Understand My Grandfather Lies Between Two Stories: The Story Of The Tiger’s Wife, And The Story Of The Deathless Man. These Stories Run Like Secret Rivers Through All The Other Stories Of His Life – Of My Grandfather’s Days In The Army; His Great Love For My Grandmother; The Years He Spent As A Surgeon And A Tyrant Of The University. One, Which I Learned After His Death, Is The Story Of How My Grandfather Became A Man; The Other, Which He Told To Me, Is Of How He Became A Child Again.

Kelly Link's Prose Is Conveyed In Details So Startling And Fine That You Work Up A Sweat Just Waiting For The Next Sentence To Land. This Is Why We Read, Crave, Need, Can't Live Without Short Stories.

When I Hit A Block, Regardless Of What I Am Writing, What The Subject Matter Is, Or What's Going On In The Plot, I Go Back And I Read Pablo Neruda's Poetry. I Don't Actually Speak Spanish, So I Read It Translation. But I Always Go Back To Neruda. I Don't Know Why, But It Calms Me, Calms My Brain.

The Dead Are Celebrated. The Dead Are Loved. They Give Something To The Living. Once You Put Something Into The Ground, Doctor, You Always Know Where To Find It.