AM: Approximately two years for the actual stories, but if you count the apprenticeship to get to the point where I was able to write the stories, close to ten.

AM: Yes.  I am a short story writer, not a novelist dabbling in the short form. And though The Body of This is my first book, I have been publishing stories widely for quite a few years. I intentionally worked within a certain theme - in this case, architecture, carnality - with this series of stories, though, because my previous stories were all over the map and as a result lacked a cohesion necessary to attract a publisher.

AM: That was done jointly with the publisher, though I was given the ultimate say. I chose the story The Architecture of Things as the first story because I feel it captures all of the themes that run throughout the book and because it is perhaps the most controversial.