In The End, Long Life Is The

When I Was About Twenty-one, I Published A Few Poems. Maybe I Wrote A Couple Of Stories Before, But I Really Began To Write Stories In My Mid-thirties. My Kids Were Still Little, And They Were In School And Day Care, And I Had Begun To Think A Lot About Wanting To Tell Some Stories And Not Being Able To Do It In Poetry.

I'm Seventy-five Now. I Also Have The Peculiar Luck Of Having A Sister And Brother Who Are Fourteen And Sixteen Years Older Than Me. Their Health Is Not Good. It Couldn't Be At That Age. But Their Spirits Are. Both My Brother And My Sister Are An Example To Me.

I Was A Fantastic Student Until Ten, And Then My Mind Began To Wander.

I Didn't Intend. The Word "intend" Is The Wrong Word For What I Do. It's Just That It's Something You Do, And You Can't Not Do. If You Want To Do It, And You Don't Intend To, You Do It Anyway. The Word "intend" Is Wrong. The Word "pressure" Is Right. It's Like Any Art Form.

I Was Fortunate That By The Time I Was Born, There Were A Lot Of Comforts And At The Same Time I Lived In A Neighborhood Where It Was Brought To My Eyes Every Single Day That People Didn't Live Like Me. Every Day I Knew That Many Of My Friends "got Relief." That Was Important In My Thinking About The World, Thinking That Not Everybody Lived That Way.