“If we can think of a place, the physicality of a place, as a kind of '...” — Laura van den Berg Quote

“If we can think of a place, the physicality of a place, as a kind of 'material,' I would say the landscape of Florida in particular was especially important while writing 'Isle.'”

“Early influences included Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, Charles Baxter, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, Denis Johnson - writers who are important to me still and who I discovered through my teachers.”

“If I leave the fictional world for too long, it's a bit like stepping through a portal, entering another reality, and then not knowing how to get back to where you were before.”

“I have a house in a small town in Tuscany where everybody knows and looks out for each other. That's a similar mentality to on the Isle of Man.”

“My first job was on the end of a pier in the Isle of Wight doing show business.”

“Believe it or not, one of the first poets I was aware of was Yeats. I recited 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' at a verse speaking competition when I was eight or nine.”