It’s a summer party, Fourth of July. Sweat rolls down your neck. You sip lemonade. Hot dogs char on a grill.

My novel, I Keep My Worries in My Teeth begins and ends inside a camera obscura. A camera obscura is a simple thing that produces big wows.

The girl sees it first, a smudge of fur along the gravel shoulder. She stops, and Small almost walks into her, then he sees it too. Yes, it’s real.

The best way to research physical disability is to be alive for awhile. At minimum you’ll wear out your eyes or ears or joints, need glasses or hearing aids or a cane, and be warmly welcomed to the world of prosthetic devices.

I talk to Haruki Murakami at the culvert by the bridge over Stickler’s Creek. Usually.

What does a writer do? Not a goddamn thing. They know how to think or how to drink. That’s our talent. I didn’t research Life of the Party. I lived it, bitch!

Father seldom came home for dinner. Now, he never comes home, and Mother gets a phone call every evening during dinner.

Something pulls seagulls beneath the surface of the pond. I watch through my bedroom window.

My novel The Distance from Four Points is about a wealthy suburbanite who unexpectedly becomes a small-town landlord after her husband’s tragic death. I based the small town of Four Points on my hometown in southwestern Pennsylvania, though Four Points is a little poorer, a little rougher, than its real-life counterpart.