What’s the oldest story in Russian Lover and when did you write it?

Honestly I don’t remember. I think it’s “The Father,” the short piece that has a falling utensil as its climax. I wrote it long enough ago that I couldn’t write it now.

Why did you decide to put these stories together?

Actually it was a collaboration between myself and the publisher and editor. I had a slew of stories, and these stories seemed to connect and yet change pace enough to make it interesting.

What is it about the story "Russian Lover" that defined the collection for you?

I loved the name "Russian Lover" as a title, although it nearly got misinterpreted by the original book-cover illustrator, who is a really wonderful, talented artist, but took the description literally. I had always imagined a really angry girl thinking about a so-called "Russian Lover" as opposed to the actual lover. I had also imagined a cover that was a bit edgy, an angry girl who was very exposed (not necessarily naked but very much there to the world), yet didn't give a shit about anything or anyone else besides the rage she was feeling at the moment. The irony there, of course, is that we're looking at someone who is absolutely refusing to be looked at. Yet there she is. Then I also realized I had been imagining the paintings of Steven Schwartz (also known as SAS), a superb artist who had moved to Los Angeles but had been a really good friend of mine in Brooklyn. The publishers were incredibly cool about my proposing something else. That's one thing you get with a small, rugged independent: They believe in your vision, and so they are willing to see it through. And when Steve was willing to have one of his paintings reproduced, that was the beginning of a great collaboration.

I guess I’m a big one for irony — in a guffaw sense, not a precious sense. And in the story there really is no "Russian Lover" anymore, just a kind of assault on the main character’s entire life embodied, in her mind, in the faceless face of this “cabbage eater.” I also love the character Amy’s energy: her boldness; her total ambition to set the record straight and her absolutely mistaken sense of how to do it. Her heart and her sense of injustice are so deep that they carry her task away, like an undertow of emotions. I love that. I was told I write a lot about women getting into trouble, and that some of them seem kind of, um, “disturbed.” But I never think of them as disturbed. They’re at a crossroads and they need to make a decision, and it’s fight or flight. The truth is, adrenaline plays a larger part in our lives and reactions than we think. And I’m charmed by Amy’s adrenaline.

What is the novel you’re writing?

Well, there’s that old adage that if you talk about it, you can’t write it. Let’s just say it’s a longer story and takes place over a lot of time. But as usual I started out creating a n entirely different world to the world I know, and the world I know decided it needed to invite itself to the party. So it’s a pretty big raucous scene right now. I’m trying to keep it a one-ring, not a three-ring circus. I can say that I like to see chapters as whole stories, and that is having a strange effect on where the action rises and where it falls.

A lot of these stories are about women in crisis or going through tough, sometimes sordid experiences. Are these things you have experienced yourself?

Ahah. There’s that question again. Well, there were, honestly, my lost years in Miami. I wasn’t lost so much as kind of elevated by the craziness all around. That was before Miami really had rules, I think.

The crisis issue is — yes, they are in crisis. They have to make a decision. Or decide to not make a decision. They are women who can’t settle into one definition of themselves, often, because they have a restless curiosity about life and a passionate need to feel alive. And often, they are not the prime movers of their own life. And there are men around who aren’t really doing them any favors. That sounds like a total cliché, so I’ll stop there.

Whether or not I lived it doesn’t matter so much as whether or not it comes alive on the page. If it makes you think I might have been there, I’ve done a good job.

Are your women heroes or victims?

My gosh, does it have to be one or the other? In the traditional sense of a victim they aren’t victims: They speak, they breathe, they run, they act. They may not be thrilled with the situation they’ve gotten into, but they’ve got a plan and they’re going to fix it. I think actually they’re heroes. Or call them escape artists. Victims I think of as passive, and maybe I'm being overdefensive of the women who populate these pages. But these girls are anything but passive. Their energy flies out of them. Otherwise they wouldn't fill my head with their voices and pull me by the hand through the middle of Boston in the middle of winter, in my head. Let's go back to calling them heroes. Heroes inspire. And sometimes these characters inspire me.

What writers have/do inspire you?

So many. Poets as well as fiction writers, and nonfiction writers as well as that. I love Grace Paley, for the diligent and dogged and brilliant way she wrote and observed and wrote. So many people shook their heads to say she didn’t have enough stories out there, which infuriates me: She wrote what she wrote, and each story is enormous if you think about it. To get inside the minutiae of a person’s life is a mammoth undertaking if it’s done right. And she does it right. I have always loved TC Boyle as a writer, but I could do without the uniform and the cult. I love Joy Williams: uncompromising, steely, able to look a lot of bullshit right in the face. And from her I learned a lot about sentences and how they can work, and about voice, and about economy. Those are three for now. There are tons more. In general I’m inspired by many writers, so long as they are serious and willing to crack open convention and find what’s true. I used to have someone beg me to write a good old-fashioned page turner, as if that’s what I should aspire to be: the next Danielle Steele. Um, not.

More writers I thought of as I was driving this afternoon: Denis Johnson, Mary Robison, Edwidge Danticat without question, Martin Amis with some slight sense that I'm being manipulated into liking him. Matthew Sharpe, who I went to college with. He wrote a great novel, Jamestown, that brings the colony to light in very surprising ways. Sam Lipsyte, who is funny like heartbreak funny, funny like grostesquely beautiful funny, and Lydia Millet, who refuses to do anything but what she has to do. She is ahead of the curve in so many ways, I think. Those last two actually provided blurbs for my book, but I'm not throwing props back their way because they did that. I asked them to blurb the book because I love them. I lucked out. Sometimes art is a matter of luck.

How did you hook up with Yeti and Verse/Chorus?

Mike McGonigal of Yeti had published a lot of my work and I’d written nonfiction for his magazine as well. We’d talked about doing something for a long time. I met Steve Connell [of Verse/Chorus] through him. We took a while to figure out all the details. It was a wonderful process.

What’s it like being the debut author of a new imprint?

Well I think I wasn’t supposed to be, but someone, I won’t say who, was late with his manuscript. It has meant being able to say something people may remember as they call me Donna.

How do you feel about the other authors on Yeti?

Like we’re littermates.

What else are you working on?

Everyday, being as brilliant as I can as I write about design and fashion for MOLI. Or at least being original. What a great day job. Talk about fueling the fire and great company. That’s a great example of what I mean: These writers inspire me as much as (and here's more of a list) Jim Harrison, Carole Shields, James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Frank O’Hara.