Reading Was the Easy Part,
less strenuous than inventing imaginary companions for an increasingly disturbed only child with literate parents for models.
Literary Influences
Monstrous—that was how I felt! It is impossible to convey how this sentence spoke to me, how it seemed to capture my own predicament. To this day, I consider it the greatest opening in all of literature. It presents the story’s fundamental premise without preamble or build-up. It is practically a short-story in itself! But again, what kind of story?
Getting Here
Afternoons in a well-worn wooden chair at the Allentown, Pennsylvania Public Library reading Dr. Seuss register as happy memories in an otherwise chaotic early childhood. Reading and writing felt as natural and welcome to me as running wild on the playground.
How Do You Bounce a Kid Off a Stagecoach?
The first story I remember writing was about a child who had fallen off a stagecoach as it rattled over a western plain. I had never seen a stagecoach, or a western plain.
Questioning Elitism
So many issues regarding elitism have arisen lately in my quasi-literary life that I’m impelled to write an essay. I don’t flatter myself that I have a "literary" life, hence the above qualification. Books have always been a refuge, even when I don’t read them. In my childhood I had a packed bookcase at the right side of my bed on top of my bureau. That bookcase was like the walls of Babylon. It prevented dragons from getting through to me.
From Freddy to Toni
My need to write, to turn my pain into art, led me to appreciate great writing.