I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.

Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film. What will last, if things go well, is her genius as a choreographer, as a woman of the theater.

Juilliard definitely emphasizes the theater. They don't train - at all really - for film acting. It's mostly process-oriented, pretty much for the stage.

I was never forced to write. At least, I was never forced or even encouraged to write fiction. Creative writing wasn't in the curriculum at my school when I was in sixth grade.

Honestly, I find so many fields - fashion, art, music - totally boring and restricting if you just stick to one of them and try so hard to fit into that thing.