Tamar Yellin: About twelve years. I was working for a long time on my first published novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher. It was a complicated book to write and went through many drafts. Every so often I would break off from it and turn to writing short stories. I found them considerably less stressful and more fulfilling. I could relax and feel freer - if a story didn't work out, it wasn't such a disaster. I was also able to explore further the themes I was opening up in my novel, or alternatively, have a complete change of theme and genre, which was very liberating.

TY: It wasn't until I had a dozen or so published stories under my belt that I began to think in terms of a collection, and to write further stories with the shape of the collection in mind.

TY: Roughly speaking, the stories follow a progression from childhood to adulthood and old age. From home and out into the world. The second, title story, and the last, act as a sort of frame - both refer to Kafka but in very different ways. Other than that, I really just followed my instinct as to the order the stories should follow. It's probably a bit like deciding what order songs should go in on an album: you want them to lead melodically into each other and to complement or contrast with one another, pick up themes and echo images. It's a pleasurable process. My choices were dependent on quality, of course (only one of the stories was previously unpublished) and whether the story was a fit with the themes of the collection: displacement, cultural dissonance, loss, the search for belonging.

TSR: What does the word "story" mean to you?

TY:  A story is like a magnifying glass. It magnifies time, slows it down and examines it in minute detail. It's a way of containing past, present and future in a very compressed space. (Often, the future of the narrative lies in the reader's mind, beyond the last sentence - if the writer is skilful enough to plant it there.) I'd say it's like an intense shot of significance. This makes the story form an exceptionally powerful one.

TSR: Do you have a "reader" in mind when you write stories?

TY:  Only in the sense that I exercise my critical faculty. Otherwise, at the moment of writing I write for myself.

TSR: Is there anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection, anything at all?

DH: I never know what to say to people who've read my work. I'd rather talk about something else.

TSR: How does it feel knowing that people are buying your book?

TY: It doesn't really have any reality for me. The only real part is writing it. Sometimes readers drop me a line, which I very much appreciate.

TSR: What are you working on now?

TY: A novel. I'd love to get back to writing short stories at some point.

TSR: What are the three most recent short story collections you've read?