As artists, we will never know the full extent to which our work has affected others. But I would ask this, if you could change just one person’s life, wouldn’t it be worth it? And if that person is just you, the artist, aren’t you worth it?
Most of the concrete details incorporated in the poems are factually true, even though many of the characters/voices I’ve created are fictional and the comic book landscape of monsters, supervillains, and superheroes is frequently fantastic.
Every story begins somewhere different for me, which means I often have to be alert to what pulls me in.
Every writer has to find perspective on—and an appropriate position in—the narrative they want to recount.
Who the hell knows what we will do in our lives?
I think the stories reflect the purpose for which they were written, which was: to be read aloud to a room full of other writers at a community open mic.
I found myself drawn to the idea of taking these big, comic book concepts and applying them to a quiet story about loss and the poison of nostalgia.
I try to write something new at least 3 to 5 times a week, and I tell myself that it doesn’t have to be good.
Everything I write is part of a life-long continuum of work that informs each other, and if I look at something I’m working now, I’ll see its origin in something I was thinking about maybe twenty or thirty years ago.
For every 1,000 word story I filed on some aspect of the city, there were 15 pages of notes that didn’t make it into the article. From those marginal observations have sprung a lot of my fiction.
