Once you've finished typing and moving text around and everything else, you have to leave it alone for a while. You do that to see if it stands up, to see if all the loose edges have been trimmed, if it makes sense, if it's consistent, what shape it really has. You can't tell that while you're working on it.

Everybody is an expert on one thing - that's what I learned in my high school journalism class - and that's, of course, his own life. And everybody deserves to live and have his story told. And if it doesn't seem like an interesting story, then that's the failure of the listener, or the journalist who retells it badly.

My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.

My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.