"We hide so well. This is the bottom line: how hidden is male subjectivity? Name five books where mal..." — Junot Diaz

Spin is 'something is beautiful because we say it's beautiful.'

My father was a Little League dictator. That really affected me, his control-freakery, his impunity, his arbitrary unreasonable power.

Stories are hard. I have friends who knock out stories on a weekly or monthly basis, like they're running on medicinal-strength Updike. But for me a story is as daunting a prospect as a novel.

I mean, I'm an artist by nature; no one considers what I do and no one knows who the heck I am, but that anybody does - it is astonishing.