page. How do I try to accomplish this? Through imagism. Every moment in my stories I can imagine happening as if a film reel is turn– ing slowly in my skull. My job is to replicate that with ink and paper. Which "ain't easy." But you can take a stab at it by constantly orienting your audience, reminding them of that overturned vase here or that breeze coming in the window there. And, even more importantly, if I want to convey some idea (despair, joy, etc.) I try to make it visual rather than talking about it. And if I think about the writers I admire most, I suppose that's the essence ofwhat they're doing. CR: What is your primary emotion as you begin to craft a new piece? BP: An electric kind of excitement. CR: What is your primary emotion as you finish a piece? BP: Fear; that it isn't good enough. CR: Describe your relationship to your readers. Do you have obligations or responsibilities? At what point does your fiction stop belonging to you? BP: You are obligated to change [your readers] so that they emerge from the page with their vision slightly shifted. And, heck, it doesn't hurt to entertain them while you're at it. Your work ceases to belong to you the moment it's published. I've discovered that what I intended and what an audience takes away from my work are often two entirely different things. 56 CR: A number of the stories in The Language ofElk and Refresh, Refresh seem to deal with "masculinity" as a theme. Is there an intentional effort on your part to flesh out this theme, or would you say that it's a byprod– uct stemming from the characters that you happen to find yourself interested in? That is to say, do your stories typically begin with a thematic idea that you'd like to explore, or rather with individual characters?
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