I'm working on too many projects: a novel (or is it novels?), a screenplay, a collection of 100-word stories, various collages, and other precarious yet stimulating endeavors (and I'm executive director of National Novel Writing Month). But most of my creative time is spent raising two budding novelists who require being chauffeurred to activities and birthday parties around town. They rarely do the laundry, but they're good at building extravagant forts with blankets in the living room.

I'm adamant about always having a story submission in the works because getting published is akin to playing the lotto. The odds are against you, but you've got to be in the game to win. I'm fortunate to have placed stories in such journals as The Southwest Review, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Gargoyle, Word Riot, PANK, eclectica, Flash International, Revolver, 365 Fiction, and The Berkeley Fiction Review, among others. If you asked me to count my rejections, I'd need a calculator.

I like publishing others as much as I like writing, though. Maybe it's the former teacher in me, the love of helping others to reach their creative potential. I started this online lit mag, 100 Word Story (www.100wordstory.org), a while back, and I learn so much about writing from the submissions I read. Being on the other side of things helps me with my own submissions as well.

I believe quite simply that everyone is a writer—that we create our world through the stories we tell—so I now enthusiastically prod nearly everyone I meet to write a novel and feel how life can be transformed through a daring creative act.

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