From the editor: This interview is bit unusual because in a way both writers interview each other, exchanging comments on books, life and yes, important male organs. So the reader gets two interviews for the price of one, as well as the chance to look into the minds of these two remarkable women.

AB: I like what you say. But in a way, I question the mindfulness. I think of language as coming from two places—the mindful place (land of revision, for me,) and the soupy place (land of first draft.) I think I get most into language when I’m not thinking verbally. In “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin has this great line about music and jazz, about how the musician is imposing order on the void by playing. So, if I put that onto writing, I feel like we are dipping into that void, and a writer shapes it with words but first it is soupy, pre-verbal, immediate. I guess I find this relieving because when I have to think about words, I freeze up. I forget they are my friends. I feel like there are right ones and wrong ones, when, in fact, it is such a mess trying to express anything, and getting close to expressing something is such a triumph that clearly there are no right words and wrong words! How do I get inside the soupy place? I try to distract myself as much as possible. I work on many things at once. I write fast. I space out and stare at the wall.

NMK: Questioning is good. My mind is lazy, prone to snoring. To me— 'mindfulness,' editing, meditating— it's all part of the same process. It's all about the refinement of the world into some mysterious understanding that can be language-optional and often is.

The edge—that seems to be your territory as a writer. And darkness. Elegant outrage. I’m assuming the new book WILLFUL CREATURES and your contribution to THE SECRET SOCIETY OF DEMOLITION WRITERS will map this world again. So, if you don’t mind my asking a question I get all the time, what’s a nice gal like you doing writing about your penis?

AB: Ha! It is a great question. And one I can't really answer that easily.

I don’t think it’s penis envy, really, as much as some strange identification with men at a given moment. There’s something aggressive about writing to me, and women can be aggressive, of course, but sometimes I do associate that quality more with men and then voila! The characters have penises.

But the main story of that, “Fell this Girl,” is also really fragile, about a really dangerously numb character, so it seems like a denial of something, too—for her, having a penis is a way to get out of her own body since she does not have one. How do you answer this question???

Also, about mindfulness. I liked thinking about it more, realizing that a certain kind of mindfulness is key, which is when you are just IN the story. Letting the story happen, without a writer imposing herself. I can tell, with other writers, or with students, when they’re inside the scene, because the quality of the detail is better versus a kind of fancy footing writing, which isn’t mindful but performative.

Next book is a collection of short stories—called Willful Creatures, and full of willful creatures. It starts with a lot of mean people, hopefully ends with some hope. Something like that.

NMK: With my audience, the 'penis' question takes a different, odd turn.

Given the darkness of my own first two books, some people are surprised that I'm a woman. A fan in a book club in Milwaukee called me to ask if I were a transgendered human.

“Aren’t all writers?” I replied.

"No," she said. "I'm not speaking in metaphors. I want to know if there's been some snipping because no woman could write like you do. Unless, of course, you've been institutionalized."

It does bring up an interesting point about readers, though. What do we owe readers? I believe that when we write a book we begin a conversation; that's why I always put my e-mail on the book jacket. If I provoke, it's only fair for me to allow for a response.

But topic often chooses the writer. I have a sloppy unwieldy profoundly-broken heart—and that always guides me. However, with my new book WHALE SEASON I’ve decided to create a landscape of humor. I’m still dealing with darkness, broken hearts, faith, and redemption. But now there’s laughter...mostly for my fans in Milwaukee. I sort of felt that I owed it to them.

Funny thing is, that once I began this book, I realized that I owed it to myself, too.

I now know I can take this huge heart of mine and give people a sense of 'serious joy'...a joy born of sorrow and not an easy measure.

But did I owe it to them?

Last night I went to the theater and saw “Love’s Fire”, which is a series of short plays by some of America’s greatest playwrights inspired by the sonnets of Shakespeare.

Eric Bogosian, William Finn, John Guare, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman and Wendy Wasserstein all weighed in on the vagaries of love. Some of the things they said were quite interesting and thought-provoking...as all good theater is.

However, and this is why I bring this up, the Kushner piece "Terminating, or Lass Meine Schmerzen Nicht Verloren Sein, or Ambivalence" had a lot of explicit sexual and vulgar language dealing with anal sex.

It was, I believe, designed to make the audience understand how difficult it is when you're gay to find beauty within the sexual act. But the point was revisited over and over again.

So, in that tiny 100-seat theater, about 40 of the 60 people in attendance got up and left.

However, the next short by Norman, did have this wonderful amazing moment.

So I was glad I stayed.

I guess this all got me thinking about 'pay-off'. What one owes one's audience may be a pay-off greater than the level of discomfort they created in them.

After Kushner's piece, people lost faith in the entire show. The piece that came before it, “Bitter Sauce” by Bogosian, was lovely and funny and vulgar in a lovely and funny and vulgar way...so people hung in there to see what Kushner would do.

I'm not trying to suggest that we think of pleasing an audience. But, perhaps, we should think of the place that our work— its joy, its terror and its darkness— holds in its heart.

When you write a book, you are whispering in the dark to someone to is naked in many ways. So what you say, and how loudly you say it, feels vital.

AB: What do we owe readers. I guess my first thought is honesty, but that's a little easy, too, because honesty is complicated. I was just reading an interview with director Andre Gregory, talking about truth, and how it's not just truth we want, but many truths in a line, making a kind of truth necklace.

I think we owe readers a window, meaning we need to get out of our own heads enough to show something past ourselves, something larger. But we also owe readers voice, meaning we cannot pretend we are not there, making the glass of that window and the window frame. We have to be there. It's such a hard balance—both being there, and also getting out of the way.

Re: Kushner, and what you wrote there—sounds interesting to me, the audience’s reaction. It’s tricky, because sometimes pissing off an audience is really an act of great invention, and sometimes it’s the easiest thing on earth! And telling the difference isn’t so easy either. My wonderful grad school teacher, the writer Judith Grossman used to put it this way—in writing, if you break a rule, you accrue a debt with the reader, which is fine, as long as you know that. If you’re reading ULYSSES, it’s because you know you’re going to get so much from all the invention, that it has value, in and of itself, and in the larger context, too.

NMK: When you and I leave this world, what remains? Books go in and out of print. Lovers die. Children forget. Photographs fade. But I wonder if our work, our words, still remains as some trace element in the culture…like the zinc of the world. And for some, like Mark Twain, the fluorescent green zinc oxide. What do you think?

AB. I like what you said about the zinc. What do we leave behind? I do like the question but I don’t really have an answer. But I like that matter and matter, noun and verb, are the same word. We leave behind matter.