I love themes that illuminate my heart and the world around me. I love stories, I love characters, I love interesting language and fresh voices. I think of myself first as a reader, just like anyone else. When I was younger I wrote to resolve an inner conflict, between what I thought and felt and what the world thought and felt about me.īecause you’ve dealt professionally with the written word for so many decades now - and in varied capacities, as an editor, as a writer, as a teacher, and as someone who reads a lot - do you view or respond to language in a different way than say someone who only does one (or maybe two) of those things?

It was a way to understand my own experiences and my way of looking at the world. What did being able to write mean to you in your teens and early adulthood? Was it a way to articulate your own experiences, and navigating questions of sexuality and identity? I couldn't find myself in TV or even in the newspaper, so I found myself in books. This was in the '80s and at that time there was little in the media that represented gay people as we really are. I didn't understand it at the time, but I was looking for a version of myself. James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, The Color Purple by Alice Walker. When I was 15 I spent the summer in the library reading my way through classic queer texts. Do you remember the first moment when you felt the power of the printed word?

You were an avid reader, and you began writing short stories at the age of 15.

The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff