The author’s perceptive story collection One Sun Only features characters who feel adrift in their cosmopolitan surroundings.

What are the commonalities between these stories?

The cohesion of the narrators: they are all people who are really observant, who stare at things very intensely. Before I read the stories next to each other, I thought I had lighter characters who were not so in their heads, but I guess that’s my go-to.

Which was the hardest story to write?

The hardest one to write would have been “Chicago on the Seine” just because it started as a novel. I really thought it would be a novel and then it became a failed novel. Although, when I realized it would become a story, it was actually so relaxing.

How far did you get with the novel?

I wrote a whole novel that was bad, so it was probably 80,000 words. And the short story is not a condensed version of the novel; it’s a tiny part of the novel. I decided that all that interested me in the novel was this guy who repatriates Americans from France.

Is there another story where the final product is dramatically different than your first idea?

I never set out to do anything in particular; the goal is to surprise myself. All my stories are radically different from what I envision because I don’t envision anything. But I would say “The Presentation on Egypt,” because I thought it would be a story about the father, a doctor, but he dies after paragraph one. I thought, this guy is too depressed to go on, so let’s hear from the people he leaves behind.

In “Colorin, Colorado,” the narrator, an established writer, is jealous of her younger student, Addie. Have you ever experienced
professional or creative jealousy?

I have experienced jealousy, of course. I think that the jealousy the narrator of that story feels, and the one that I can feel sometimes, is about the confidence that people have in putting their work out and keeping at it. I question the vocation of writing a lot in a way that other people seem not to. I don’t think the narrator is super jealous of the work that Addie puts out. She’s more jealous of Addie’s energy and the fact that Addie has no doubt about what art is for. I wish I was more confident in the process and the fact that writing has importance. I mean I do have that confidence sometimes, but it’s so fleeting, so when I see people who are very excited about writing all the time, I wish I felt that.

In the same story, Addie says about the narrator’s work, “It’s like there’s no beginning or end, really, only middle.” Could you talk about where that description came from?

This is not something that any student has ever said to me, but it’s something I’ve felt very strongly emanating from them.