I keep a list of names for my characters. There were two names in particular that I liked for a story, the truth is I still like the names all the same, but they no longer belong to the character I had in mind; I've met a person who, as fate would have it, has both first and middle name just as I had written them. I met her on the subway, I was reading Last Evenings on Earth, and she asked if I was studying, and I said no, I said I was reading a Chilean writer. What a coincidence, she said, I'm Chilean too. A couple of days later we went to her friend's concert in Brooklyn, two days after that she came along with me to buy some books in Manhattan and we walked around the city. She's been living here fewer months than me. She's a singer and understands life as an artist, I'm just a writer. The names came swiftly off the list. They fit her better anyway.