People talk about talent as though it were some neutral substance that can be applied to anything. But talent is narrow and only functions with a very few subjects, which it is up to the writer to find.

When a reviewer says that Malamud is second only to Bellow, it means he really isn't thinking about either of them. When he's reading Malamud he's thinking abo…

What he feared most was the blind spot between us and the future, the space between identities where we could get lost forever.

Carmichael was, like many Americans, a divided soul, part nomad and part homebody, who seemed a little bit at home everywhere, but was probably more so somepla…

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

When I first went to Occidental College... there was a literary magazine...called the Aurora, and I remember thinking it odd that Occidental - the west, the se…

When I'm writing, I am concentrating almost wholly on concrete detail: the color a room is painted, the way a drop of water rolls off a wet leaf after a rain.