I try to write 1,000 words. Some people say it's not about the quantity but about the quality. I disagree. You need to write a lot in order to figure out what's good and what's crap.
I live in New Orleans, because it's the strangest city in the United States. It has the highest murder rate in the country, the highest incarceration rate, and often we have to boil our drinking water, but there's nowhere else remotely like it.
There is something fascinating about every human being. The question is how much they're willing to divulge.
Criticism always seemed to me a lot like police work. You look for clues, fingerprints, motives. You need to construct an airtight case.
I studied literature and Italian at Yale. I wrote my thesis about Italo Svevo, one of my heroes.
