...the Plural Of Elf Is Elves! What

For Me, What I Am Making In The Novel Is A Place To Live. When I First Switched From Poetry To Novels, I Was Asked Why, And The Metaphor I Came Up With Was About Poems As Rooms. You Can Make A Room Perfect, But Then You Have To Shut The Door And Never Go Back, Whereas A Novel Is Like A House - It Can Never Be Perfect, But You Can Make A Life In It.

There Were Many Things They Simply Didn't Talk About: Between Them, Silence Was Not So Much A Form Of Evasion As A Way For Solitary People To Exist In A Family.

I Have Always Written About Characters Who Fall Somewhere In The Spectrum Between Solitary And Totally Alienated.

What Interests Me Very Much As A Writer Is The Ability For Writing To Have Our Lives To Be Occupied So Vividly By Others. I Think That's What We Long For As Writers.

Except For When I Was Very Little And Thought That Being An "engineer" Meant He Drove A Train. Then I Imagined Him In The Seat Of An Engine Car The Color Of Coal, A String Of Shiny Passenger Cars Trailing Behind. One Day My Father Laughed And Corrected Me. Everything Snapped Into Focus. It's One Of Those Unforgettable Moments That Happen As A Child, When You Discover That All Along The World Has Been Betraying You.