Q: When writing "Original Friend" how did you recall the episodes with Tom? Did you use childhood memories? A journal?

A: In that instance, almost everything was from memory. It was from a time and an age that was pre-literary, almost pre-literate. I had thought about it and taken notes, but I didn't know what to write, but the memories were vivid from that time in my life.

Q: How did you decide to write about this subject? How soon after Tom's death were you able to write this piece?

A: I had not seen Tom for many years and when my mother sent me his obituary I couldn't do anything because it was so overwhelming. I just put it on my bulletin board for a while and let it sit. The best writing I've done comes out of when it sits for a while. After I had rediscovered the obituary I thought 'I can write about this now,' and I gave myself permission to tell the story. The title 'Original Friend' came immediately, because that's what he was, my original friend. That title has more significance than I knew, and now that he's dead, it has symbolic significance for me.

Q: How did your essay develop in the revision process? What happened in writing it that you didn't expect would happen?

A: What I found myself doing was actually articulating many things that I knew but didn't want to say. I was forced to articulate my feelings about Tom, good and bad.

Q: What pleases you about the way your essay turned out? Are there any ways in which you feel it fell short of your original goal?

A: I didn't have an original goal. So, I guess I didn't have an ultimate disappointment. I was most pleased that it contributes to the body of writing about friendship that is everywhere lately. It was an experience that was very pleasing. . . actually writing it. I had distance on his life, and distance on his death. It was a piece about coming to realize that there were things I never knew, and still don't know, about Tom's life. Now I must do the wondering that we all must do, about the dead.

Q: What specific literary techniques do you attempt to use as a creative nonfiction writer?

A: This piece was a character study. I had to have a lot of good detail, and scenes. All good writing has scenes. I used the images of Tom through a photograph and his obituary to reel back into a deeper path, to the memory of our friendship. What I saw about his character was that I thought he was pathetic, even as a kid, but also in a way charming, and intelligent. He allowed me to be away from my own family, because his parents were older and we could run wild. Wild as it was deemed for those days; not wild as it is described today. I mostly used scenes, and an accumulating of detail which reveals his character. Our friendship was about fate. We each had to take different paths in our lives, and really, fate is what gives you your original friends. We don't choose those people; they are given to us. They are just there.

Q: What kind of advice can you offer to beginning writers?

A: Write, also to read a lot, and don't be afraid to live before you write. For many years I wrote poetry. I tried fiction, although I'm not much of a fiction writer. I didn't write fiction until I was 40. I lived and I had distance on childhood, so I had an older adults perspective on things. Don't be in a hurry to turn everything into literature. Read as much as you can; write as much as you can; and live as much as you can. Pay attention to things, and remember it all. The best writing comes from detail. I can have three details in a paragraph that takes a reader 10 seconds to read, but it might have taken me three months to remember the detail.