Amy Hempel writes stories that are as exacting as poems and as insistent as rumors. When Reasons to Live—Hempel’s first collection of short fiction—appeared in 1985, the book’s jacket copy promised “fifteen ferocious little dramas.”
"We have learned a lot from listening and talking to artists. They see thngs differently. Their work is what's going on. They may not be able to predict the future, but they make statements that say where it's going, and it often does."