I am pleased that the piece is remedial, remedial as in the 17^th century definition which is "intended as a remedy." I had no original goals, so there was no need to feel that the piece fell short.

How did your essay develop, both in your initial thinking about it and in the revision process? What happened in writing that you didn't expect would happen?

I wrote the three essays as separate entities, but then noticed they belonged together. Part of writing, for me, is that what happens always is what I don't expect. I may get a sentence in my head that is a beginning. I go from there. Sometimes I think I may be some sort of savant because I pretty much doot-de-doot around, writing on scraps of paper and in various journals and on napkins, etc.; then, when it comes time, I start gathering what I've writ-ten.

If you write in other genres (poetry, fiction, playwriting, literary criticism, etc.) How does your experience writing in creative nonfiction depend upon or depart from your other kinds of writing?

My experience is that all genres are closely connected so that elements of other genres blend and sometimes (I think) the reader can see the play. When I was doing graduate work at the University of Arkansas, I whined plenty about why should I have to know about a trochaic substitution in the third foot of so-and-so's poem, and I thought I'd really lost my mind in literary criticism courses. But I studied anyhow. I am still a student of writing.

Speculate about creative nonfiction as an emerging genre in American literature. Where do you see it going in the next several years, or even farther down the line?

Most ideally, creative nonfiction ends up saving the people of the world, those of us who have for-gotten who we are, those of us who are on fire, those of us who must have stories. Stories are something that people like. Except for the really long, boring ones that leave the reader saying huh or duh after the first sentence; but you have to read them too--if they come to you--because there might be a perfect blue pearl hidden in the middle or near the end, some little sentence that will save you as you scramble around for your own salvation. That scrambling around is pretty much a full-time job.

What are the specific literary techniques you attempt to use as a creative nonfiction writer? For example, do you attempt to write in scenes? Do you employ dialogue? Specificity of detail? How and why?

As a creative nonfiction writer, I use everything in my work. I love the way a word feels when I write it. And I read and watch movies and listen to music. Then also, I have had an interesting life. And I have an interesting life now: a husband who knows me by heart and a white shepherd who comes when I cry. I live in the Redwood Forest. I remember living in those trees just a few lifetimes ago.

What advice might you offer young people interested in writing?

Write.