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I have always loved short stories. I have been at least as influenced by the short story masters as I have been by novelists.

Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.

My first five novels were written longhand. So were hosts of short stories.

I do think that short story writing is often a matter of luck.

I wrote my first short story for a competition and won second prize. Another competition came up and I won first prize. The first story was published in a newspaper. The second went out on radio.

I decided to write short stories because they got rejected quicker.

I wanted to hold onto and exploit the power of narrative. This is not only a book about a great storyteller, but there have to be stories about the storyteller.

If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.