Since the job of writing demands so much reflection goes on, and you seem to be exceptionally good at both, can you think of a time when some post-print feedback (criticism or praise) on a project influenced how you approached future projects? Are there pr

I think any writer worth the name should grow as time goes on, there’s a lot of stuff I’d do differently with the brain and craft I have now. I am proud of my work and stand by it, but there’s definitely more life experience and there are some trope-y things I wish I’d avoided.

One time, for example, I had a story where a gay couple staged a fake suicide. I thought it was clearly fake, and so I thought there was no harm done, people would see it was an obvious red herring. But I was wrong, and really very unaware of the gay man/suicide trope that was so common in fiction and was very dehumanizing. People pointed out to me, and I acted like a defensive douchebag, instead of listening and acknowledging that I had written this thoughtless thing.

That still stings, I really regret that. But I think it helped me listen to criticism in a different way that’s been really helpful.

And by the way, the people angry about that story element were right, it was very cliché in retrospect and I just wasn’t aware of what a common (and thoughtless) tired element it was.