From the essay “Demon Seed from the Author”:
“I wrote my first story, “The Magic Puppy,” when I was eight years old. It filled eleven pages of tablet paper, which I thought made it an immense tale. Tolstoy and I, writers of epics. The puppy was from another planet, a twist Tolstoy would never have considered–in part because he was psychotically obsessed with time-travel tales. I drew a cover illustration, stapled the pages along the left margin, covered the staples with electrician’s tape, and sold the sole copy to my uncle Ray for two nickels. My maiden genre, therefore, was science fiction.”