Short Story / Flash Fiction / Tutor / Editor / How To Write Fiction / Writer / Pittsburgh / The Sun Also Rises / A Farewell To Arms / For Whom The Bell Tolls / The Old Man And The Sea / A Moveable Feast / The Nick Adams Stories / Green Hills Of Africa / Across The River And Into The Trees / The Enduring Hemingway / What We Talk About When We Talk About Love / Where I'm Calling From / Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? / Furious Seasons / Cathedral

I write short stories the way I do because of Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. I consider both writers my spiritual mentors.

Hemingway taught me to distrust all adjectives and adverbs. He taught me to use action for characterization, to let the action speak for itself and to write in scenes. He taught me to distrust abstract language and to use concrete words. He taught me to use simple language.

Raymond Carver taught me two things. He taught me the form of the short story and he taught me that I could write about people who were just like me. I could write about Vietnam War veterans, college students and the working class making literature from the experiences of my own life.

In my aparatment you will always find a copy of In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway and a copy of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver.