I want to crawl inside Amy Bloom’s head. I want to plant the bulb of my story into the fertile soil of her brain, let the roots take hold, watch the green shoots erupt and behold my novel blossoming onto the page.

This is what I am thinking as Amy Bloom and I leave the WPTS radio station at the University of Pittsburgh student union. In search of food, we cross Forbes Avenue amongst a swarm of students and spill into the acre of green space that is Schenley Plaza. Amy Bloom wants to check out the Conflict Kitchen.

I am a bit star struck having spent the last two hours interviewing her with Josh, a University of Pittsburgh MFA grad student, for the Hot Metal Bridge literary journal podcast, [in brackets]. Prior to that, I spent a month immersed in her three novels Lucky Us (2014), Away (2007) and Love Invents Us (1997), a short story collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (2010) and numerous published and audio interviews. Even still, I am mindful that I have consumed only a fraction of the Amy Bloom canon which includes a screen play, State of Mind (2007) and the nonfiction offering: Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Cross-dressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude (2002).