I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.
There are holes in our lives that can never be filled - not really, not ever.
You have to find hope. Hope is such a shape shifter. You tend to look in the rearview mirror for hope, but when it's gone, you have to look forward. You have to get in the van and keep driving on.
So often when we historicize material, we use this big wide-angle lens.
Most everything that happens to me in any significant sense finds its way into my fiction.
When I started caregiving, I was not on very firm ground. My first marriage had dissolved. I was working at an ice-cream stand in my thirties. I learned that when you don't have anything to give, that's when you really give, and then you get back so much more.
After 20 years of writing in basically a vacuum, I love being part of a community. I've vetted other writers' contracts for them and do publicity for free just because I like a book. Some people think of it as hubris or careerism, but I love to champion books. You can't use your whole sphere of influence just to help yourself.
As a result of manifest destiny, we gutted our resources.
Too many writers of fiction don't give the reader enough credit.
I just need to believe that we're not in some form of stasis, that we can try to be whoever we want to be. We probably won't get there, but we might get a little bit closer, you know?
I really believe in challenging myself, pushing myself to new places.
The jocks that used to stuff me into a locker when I was a punk rocker are my best buddies now.
I grew up in the Bay Area until 1976, then I pretty much went all the way through primary and high school on Bainbridge, though like anybody who grows up on an island, I ran the first chance I got.
Homesteading is gone.
My parents divorced after 25 years of marriage.
I write as a matter of need - seven books and God knows how many short stories before anyone published me.
I've been blessed with an optimistic disposition, I think.
I never wanted to be anything but a writer, and I never let go of it.
Maybe a theme that touches all of my work is people reinventing themselves.
For me, an ideal novel is a dialogue between writer and reader, both a collaborative experience and an intimate exchange of emotions and ideas. The reader just might be the most powerful tool in a writer's arsenal.
