It was quite a ride and very conflicting for me, too - to be nominated for an Oscar, to be straight and healthy, and to be getting all these accolades while these people around me were suffering and dying from AIDS.
What I take from writers I like is their economy - the ability to use language to very effective ends. The ability to have somebody read something and see it, or for somebody to paint an entire landscape of visual imagery with just sheets of words - that's magical.
Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.