A Writer Can't Subtract Or Excise Any

I'm Drawn To Write About Upstate New York In The Way In Which A Dreamer Might Have Recurring Dreams. My Childhood And Girlhood Were Spent In Upstate New York, In The Country North Of Buffalo And West Of Rochester. So This Part Of New York State Is Very Familiar To Me And, With Its Economic Difficulties, Has Become Emblematic Of Much Of American Life.

For What Are The Words With Which To Summarize A Lifetime, So Much Crowded Confused Happiness Terminated By Such Stark Slow-motion Pain?

I Write In Longhand And Assemble Lots Of Notes, And Then I Try To Collate Them Into A Coherent Chronology. It's Like Groping Along In The Dark. I Like Writing And Find It Challenging, But I Don't Find It Easy.

To The West, The Pacific Ocean, Which Revulses Me, For Its Vastness Cannot Be Fitted Into Any Box.

For Obviously The Advantage For Most Writers Is That No One Sees Them. The Writer Is Invisible, Which Confers Power.