My Grandfather And I Were Very Close.

When I Hit A Block, Regardless Of What I Am Writing, What The Subject Matter Is, Or What's Going On In The Plot, I Go Back And I Read Pablo Neruda's Poetry. I Don't Actually Speak Spanish, So I Read It Translation. But I Always Go Back To Neruda. I Don't Know Why, But It Calms Me, Calms My Brain.

We're All Entitled To Our Superstitions.

When Men Die, They Die In Fear", He Said. "they Take Everything They Need From You, And As A Doctor It Is Your Job To Give It, To Comfort Them, To Hold Their Hand. But Children Die How They Have Been Living - In Hope. They Don't Know What's Happening, So They Expect Nothing, They Don't Ask You To Hold Their Hand - But You End Up Needing Them To Hold Yours. With Children, You're On Your Own. Do You Understand?

For Me It Was A Lot Harder To Come To Terms With The Death Of My Grandfather Than It Was To Come To Terms With What's Happened To The Former Yugoslavia.

When I Was Eight Years Old, I Wrote A Paragraph-long Short Story About A Goat On My Mother's Hundred-pound, Black-and-white-screen Laptop. The Story Came About Largely Because I Liked The Way The Word 'goat' Looked On The Page, But I Decided Then And There That I Wanted To Be A Writer. That Desire Never Changed.