“I remember desperately wanting to write a story [for the latest collection] that was not from the point of view of an adolescent boy, because it had felt like that was exclusively what I had been doing. … I think, if given my druthers, everything I write would have everyone be like 13 to 15 in some kind of island morass, or some B horror movie Swiss Family Robinson situation. That just seems to be where I live, narratively.”