According to my great-grandmother, I have been "telling stories" since I could talk. Of course to her, "telling stories" was a euphemism for lying, but isn't that what fiction is, a really good lie?

I don't write for the audience, and I don't write for myself. I write for the words. They are like viruses that wiggle and spin in the fever of my head, and they can only infect other people through their eyes and their ears. 

I'm just the vector for a disease.

When I'm not writing fiction or poetry, I work on my intimate relationship with Melville Dewey's decimal classification system, and try to keep my Flannery O'Connor website up to date.