T CORAGHESSAN BOYLE: I think that writers, beginning writers especially, should realize that what they have to offer is their own view of things, which is unique. It's one way of distinguishing ourselves from the other almost six billion apes just like us now gobbling the planet up. We all want to distinguish ourselves. And one way, good or bad-- you can pick up one of my books-- whether it's good or whether it's bad, it's still unique. Only I could have produced that book, because of my peculiar circumstances of who I am, just as everyone has peculiar circumstances. And I don't think writers should be afraid of being outrageous, bringing up the sort of material that might come out in psychoanalysis or they might have repressed. It can be therapeutic to do that. I think you can't censor yourself. And certainly a good teacher would not presume to censor any students. Here's where it gets sticky, though-- with parents, parents of artists. And we'll refer to them to writers, specifically. A parent can't relate to his or her children's artwork, I don't think-- literature, in particular-- again, uncensored, frank literature. And possibly a child can't relate also to an adult's. And I wrote a story about this in The New Yorker last year, "Achates McNeil," in which I imagine a child, like one of my little boys growing up and going to college. And his father, the famous author, comes to give a reading on campus. I think it's very difficult for children to appreciate their parents' literature and vice versa. Because you don't want to see-- as a parent, you don't want to see your child's inner self, his secrets, his desires, his sexuality, whatever. You want to see him or her as a child. And so the child wants to see the parent as this pillar of stability who's going to protect him and so on, and not as this person who has strange desires and thoughts and habits too. So that's where it gets sticky. But still, it can't discourage the writer from going on. When my mother was alive, and I was just beginning to write, I read her a story that some people will know. And now it's one of my better known stories called "Heart of a Champion" in which I rewrite the old Lassie TV show, but tell the truth. That is, Lassie has sex with a coyote. She can talk-- all sorts of things. We take it to absurd proportions. And in my mind, it's a very funny story. I read it aloud to my mother. She never cracked a smile. And she said that was a very moving story. I said OK, ma. That's it. And I never read her another story. Of course, I gave her my books while she was alive. She died after I'd written only two books. And I don't know what she made of them. But I suspect not much.