THC: Though you’ve published many creative works, you’re also an accomplished journalist. Do you approach the two forms of writing differently, and do you consider yourself more of a creative writer or more of a journalist?

AO: At this point of my life I’m much more of a creative writer than a journalist. At one point I was much more of a journalist than I was a creative writer: I worked for more than a decade for the Chicago Tribune, and I did a lot of alternative journalism before that. Journalism by design is different from creative work; you have to deal with real material. You are really anchored to the actuality of what people said, what actually took place. But that kind of so-called limitation I find really freeing because then you know exactly what the playing field is.

THC: You’ve also taught at various points in your career—is there something particular about teaching writing as opposed to the act of writing itself?

AO: The first few times I taught, it was actually a struggle. I didn’t really know what I was doing. Then I got hired as a writer-in-residence at the University of Chicago, and my students were extraordinary. They were so smart, and they were so creative, and they were so full of ideas and vigor, and they were so incredibly interested. And what ended up happening is that in the process of...teaching, I ended up having to think about things in a variety of ways that I’d never consciously thought about. I always tell people my writing has gotten a million times better since I started teaching, because...I’m constantly stimulated and confronted with ideas and possibilities that I would not come up with on my own. [In a writing group] you give feedback only because you really want feedback on your work. But a classroom is very different. It’s a more generous and open space.