[The New York Times was] my first newspaper job. I was an intern for three months at the Alaska Fisherman's Journal. That was my first publication-type job. But the first thing I ever wrote that got published, my Russian friend in the Northeast got killed with alcohol. I just sort of wrote an obituary. The new class of Russian youth, after the fall of the wall, on the street corners selling pins and posters, running from the law. And I wrote that and I think I wrote it pretty well. I felt good and I felt like, hey I'm smart enough. I can do this.