That is a difficult question to answer, since writing is not simply a matter of putting words into a computer, or on a page. Some of the most beautiful moments I have had as a writer have take place in museums, gardens, on the streets of New York or other cities, or at the theater whether it's seeing a movie, a play, or a concert. I live in New York which is always a form of theater—so just being here is exciting, although there are times when it can be simply draining, and I need to recharge by leaving. I love any form of performance—dance, sports, the streets, and sometimes simply being with friends. It's all a part of the theater of my life.

I listen to what my friends, who are often other writers, have to say; I read reviews; I also keep my eyes open to new ideas and talent.

Yes, I was eight years old and I wanted to write a story about a seal and call it "Seal Island." I never did write it, but the idea stayed with me for several years. In high school I wrote a story that was published in a student magazine about a student who is caught cheating and the teacher who has bonded with him, and hates the fact that the kid has had to cheat. One of my teachers said that she had rarely read anything that captured what being a teacher was like so well: I was extremely pleased. It made me realize that I could write.

I am a very quick first-draft writer and a very slow 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th—any number of revisions—draft writer. I love revising writing, and sometimes I can finish the first draft of a book in 6 months and then spend two years revising it. Revising is very important to the writing process—and you can really see it when writers don't revise. Their work is sloppy, and it shows.

The first story, or stories, that really affected me were "The Arabian Nights." My father gave me a copy of a very unexpurgated version of them when I was 8 years old; I was immersed in them. They were pure magic. By 8, I was already a confirmed reader, and could read on a close-to-adult level. The sad part of this was that I skipped a lot of kids' books, and sometimes read them as an adult. But great children's literature really doesn't have an age limit. It appeals to everyone.

I work with wonderful designers and let them make a lot of the decisions regarding covers, although I pick the photos or art involved.

Having book events that appeal to a larger audience, through topics that interest them, and engaging with other authors or personalities at the events. I still feel that live book events are very important, they bring in media and real interaction with readers.

It's close to pandemonium, but I still know where most things are. I love organization and admire it very much, mostly because I can never achieve it. If I had 3 people working for me to organize me, that might help. But as a working writer, who has to deal not only with what I'm actually working on but also with a back list of books—19 at this point—and how to keep at least some of them alive, it's difficult. Certain things I need at my desk: a real dictionary; a thesaurus; lots of pens; a stapler for putting things together so that I can find them in the piles that accumulate; and lots of paper clips. I also have 3 filing cabinets, and a small tabouret with drawers in it next to my desk, filled with pen cartridges, post-its, and other supplies. My desk does not have a view, although I live in an apartment with gorgeous view of the Hudson River. But I like being separate when I work, and need quiet: lots of it. It amazes me that some writers can work with kids, loud music, TV, and other distractions around them. I need to hear what's going on in my head and see what's behind my eyes. I admire Proust in his cork-lined room—he needed that to hear the music in his words.

I grew up in Savannah, GA, in the 1950s and early 1960s, a very difficult time to be in the South, when racial tensions were high, and there was a lot of paranoia about "subversion," Communism, and sex itself which was just starting to come out of its own closet. I left the South when I was 17, after a terrible year at the University of Georgia, in Athens, GA, where I had death threats in my dorm room because it was suspected that I was a "queer," one of the worst things imaginable then. A lot of the usual, psychotic hatred of blacks that the South had been famous for, and to me it was very much a psychosis, became transferred to people outside the sexual "norm." And just as many, if not most, Southerners have some kind of "black" blood in them, that fear of not being masculine enough was rampant. I am very much influenced though by my Southern heritage—the cadence of speech, the love of talk, of quiet socializing, the graciousness of the South; that was there, too. I am also Jewish, so growing up Southern, Jewish, and gay have all influenced me.

I love putting out books myself—and have been doing it for 25 years now, when it was not so common. I love being in charge of the whole process, and being a real part of creating a book. Working with publishers, you often lose out on that and the book you want to publish just doesn't get published. I used to compare it to being a choreographer who starts his own dance company to do his or her dances—how else can you get so much done, and do it the way you want to. There are down sides to it; sometimes I miss the support that comes from a larger scale publishing venture. But I love the sheer act of going from an idea to a book, and i have become very good at it. (I hope!)

That's an easy question to answer: I love the art and craft of using language to create something that was not there before, to sculpt life out of words. And second, also very important, that I have reached a lot of people, given them some genuine happiness and pleasure, and added to their lives. That is really my greatest reward as a writer.

They are very important, and I understand that many people want to reach out to me, many more in fact than those who ever do. I like doing live events for that reason, to meet people, and talk with them. When I do a book event, whether at a bookstore or an event space, I always say at the end, "I hope you'll come up and talk to me, and also I hope you'll talk to each other." That is important. We live in a time of great social isolation, but books can be a source of bridging that isolation. So I want the audience to talk to each other as well as to me.

A memoir about my leaving home and coming out into the world, the great drama of everyone's life really.

I have bunches of them—many of them classic, a few of them my friends and contemporaries. I think it's important to have friends who are writers, and writers should have writer "friends," even ones who are dead. So I count among my "friends" Joseph Conrad and D.H. Lawrence (I am crazy about Lawrence), E. M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, and also Christopher Bram, who's alive and a real friend. I've just been reading Eileen Myles and love her, but have for a long time; I wish I had time to read more poetry, but another friend is Michael Klein, a great writer. I like Felice Picano's dishiness, and also that he and I both write everything—from "poetry to porn," as I like to put it. Maybe all poetry should be "porn," in that it turns you on, and we all know how much, deep inside, truthfully, we like that.

The sheer happiness of being alive, of having things to do and see and feel. I am never bored, and almost never depressed. Often I am elated, and feel euphoric—can't tell if that's hormones, personality, or just the fact that I have spent a lot of my life doing what I have wanted to do. I did not go in for that idea that i had to "wait until the right time" to do what I wanted. I went to Europe when I was 21 for the first time with $75 in my pocket, and stayed for almost 3 months. Every day was an adventure. I loved it. Now that would be impossible to do, but I was lucky to do it then. When I was growing up, people said to me, wisely, "You can't always do what you want to do . . . " They mean I had to do what THEY wanted me to me. But, for the most part, I have done what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to do most was write the kind of books I write. So that gets me out of bed easily.