I’ve noticed that some younger writers are really being brave, trying out new things, and I think they may sense that a lot of big publishing is shitting the bed anyway, that getting out of the mindset that there is a nice living to made writing serious fiction is the important first step. Then you are free. I think the internet has been great for new fiction. That’s been the big change. People are still writing stories and novels and a few are great and some are good and most aren’t very good at all. I guess what’s different is that you could go through your awkward stage in private. Back when I was figuring out how to write the internet existed but not like today. We’d have the same conversations that people have online now, rants about the more established writers we revered and hated, and we made a lot of stupid pronouncements about the state of literature and how it’s all shit except for so-and-so and what’s-her-name and, of course, us, but the only witnesses were a few people and a sofa and some beer cans. Or you might show somebody a story you wrote, but there was no posting it on a blog. So there was no real record of when you were a dumb, scared, angry baby who didn’t know how to write yet.