There's a tendency in workshops for teachers to tinker with the delivery of their students. I think that instead they should concentrate on finding inclinations and idiosyncracies. I loved San Francisco, getting out of the media agglomeration for a while. San Francisco is untempered by New York's tendency to make snap judgements. It is these regional impulses, like the music scene in Seattle and Minnesota, that help America retain its creative impulses.
American civilization comes from the middle class.
To be able to penetrate in the communicate. Explicate, that impulse to get under the skin and see what's there. In Purple America , my presumption is that my readers want to see me stretch and tackle broader issues than what I've produced in my previous work. Ice Storm proved to be a domestic narrative, and I know that I can do that. I wanted to try something bigger.