At face value, Louis Simpson's "The Stone Collector" is about a man who likes to collect stones as a diversion from his day job as manager of a furniture store. Simpson took a commonplace narrative scene-walking with an acquaintance on a Long Island beach-and turned it into a meditation about work and imagination.

However, the stone collector himself is not an actual person but an aspect of Simpson's own personality. While Simpson was writing this essay, he kept Chekhov in mind as an example of a writer who used everyday situations to explore aspects of himself. According to Simpson, who won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry,the stone collector is himself. What makes the piece nonfiction, he said, is the fact that he invented nothing but the stone collector's appearance and occupation.

"If you're inventing, it's fiction. If you feel you're not inventing, it's nonfiction," Simpson said. "In this essay, everything's taken from fact-when I walk on the beach I keep an eye out for stones that have interesting shapes and colors.

"It's all fact; it's just that the speaking voice is a made-up character. I don't want to say it was myself, because then the piece would cross the line into something too personal. I don't want to add to the bulk of the confessional writing in the world-I just get sick of it. I don't want this piece read as something autobiographical, but as a commentary on the general human condition."

The essay explores the nature of Simpson's own creative process. "It's really an explanation of why I write poetry," he said, "and that is not because I want anyone to read it, but because I must do it. I think real artists work because that's what makes them tick-it's a very private motivation, and it's a general human condition. That's the central truth of this piece."

Simpson did not consider writing "The Stone Collector" as a short story because, he says, "the surroundings were so real to me, and the person I'm walking with is so real to me. I thought of the character of the stone collector as simply a disguise."

Simpson said "The Stone Collector" can be studied as an example of one way to achieve detachment from a personal subject and eliminate an ego-centric narrative voice. When he taught writing, he said, "I tried to get students out of writing about themselves, because it's a trap. I think it's very useful not to say 'I.'"