Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

For you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read. Hello and welcome to Bookworm. This is Michael

Silverblatt, and today my guest is Amy Bloom. She's the author most recently of the novel,

Love Invents Us. Amy started writing eight years ago. The products of those initial years are in her book of short stories

come to me, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Now, I wanted to ask,

how did you start writing? Really started eight years ago?

Really? Started eight years ago? Well, I mean, I think there was probably an unconscious process that I haven't particularly focused on.

I think the conscious process was that I was actually going to become an analyst and had gone to meet with the guy who was going to be my training analyst.

And we hit it off.

And I thought, well, this is what I'll start on Monday.

And on the way back.

There was actually McDonald's box that one of my kids had thoughtfully left in the front seat,

and I started writing down notes for mystery because I like to read mysteries for junk.

And I understood the rules of writing a mystery, so I thought I could do this.

And then as the mystery kind of was sort of a warm mystery, so I thought I could do this. And then as the

mystery kind of was sort of a warm up, I guess, for me, and then the story started showing up.

Was the mystery published? No, I actually bought it back from the publisher. Why? I didn't

think it was good enough. Uh-huh. Were you going to use your own name when you published

mysteries? A lot of people choose new names. No, I was going to use your own name when you publish mysteries?

...