
I never set out to write a craft book--or, for that matter, to write business columns, or reference materials, or textbooks on teen sex and Chernobyl, or basically anything that's paid the bills over the last five years. I'd written for years, but it had been an after-hours art: Essays about technology and sexuality and Detroit's decay; stories about clockwork robots, haunted dogs, monster wives, and giant squid--the kind of stuff you gut out after dark; the kind of stuff you write for the consuming love of finding how to say it. The kind of stuff that's hard to sell.
I've always been a crackerjack essayist (honest; I won prestigious… read more





