I dread it because of the impossibility of answering it adequately. On the one hand everyone who asks this question is a potential reader, someone who might buy and read one of my books. And yet, if she has just been raving about the works of James Patterson or Jackie Collins (or any number of other best-selling writers), it is unlikely that she is going to like my ‘literary’ (for lack of a better word) novels. Sometimes, when confronted with this question, I summarize one of my stories briefly, eyeing my questioner’s face for flickers of interest. Sometimes I get lazy and simply say my work is literary and leave it at that, letting her investigate on her own if she’s inclined. If the conversation is of some length and depth, I might talk about what compels me most, an exploration of the human psyche and soul. But in a short conversation that response can be a pretentious turn-off.

The larger difficulty of this question lies in the proliferation of questions it lays at my feet, questions I am usually able to keep at bay in the day-to-day work of writing. What am I really investigating? What is my work about? Why do I write, and who am I writing for? (If not this stranger in front of me, then what stranger?) These are uncomfortable, possibly unanswerable questions. They prompt a great deal of soul searching that can sometimes feel distracting to a writer (this writer, at least).

And yet, the world at large asks these questions of writers, and wants writers to answer them. And I believe the world has a right to pose these questions. I, as a writer, will, uncomfortable as it often seems, keep attempting to answer them.