Would you like to share with our readers the inspiration for this story?

Shirley, Rhonda and Bill feel like family to me and are very much shaped by my childhood experiences of growing up in Cincinnati while also spending time in Manchester, Ohio, a small farming town on the Ohio River where my mother is from. 


Do you have a writing schedule you adhere to and/or any tricks you might want to share with your readers?

It's only been two years since I returned to writing after many years devoted solely to teaching.  The shaping of my writing process has been largely trial and error, and, frankly, more error than I'd like to admit. The one rule I try to follow is to write every day, first thing.  I also find it helpful to sit on my drafts for a long time.  Not literally of course, though there is something to it, like a hen on an egg.  I've found that if I set a story aside, I'm able to return to it and see things I wouldn't necessarily be able to see had I attempted to revise immediately.  


What book are you reading at this time?

I'm actually been working my way through a big stack of old New Yorkers this winter.  Some stories I've love and cannot recommend strongly enough:  Louise Erdrich's "Demolition", Alice Munro's "Deep Holes," C.E. Morgan's "Twins," and T.C. Boyle's "Sin Dolor." 


Name the top two or three most influential writers of your writing career and maybe a line or two telling us why.

Hmm.  Tricky question.  I see myself primarily as a reader, so it's hard for me to trace a line from any particular writer to something I've written.  I'd love to one day be able to write with the wit and precision of Sam Lipsyte and A.M. Homes, the emotional depth and subtly of Alice Munro, Maile Meloy...see, I'm not far down this path and already I'm realizing this list could go on for days.