A few years ago, Lori Ostlund was known to Albuquerqueans as an instructor at TVI and one of the Two Serious Ladies who ran that eponymous furniture store in Nob Hill. She and her partner decided in 2005 that they needed more time to write, and in order to simplify their lives, they moved to San Francisco. Since then, her first book, the short story collection The Bigness of the World, has earned her the Flannery O'Connor for Short Fiction and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Grant. Prior to her upcoming appearance in Albuquerque, Ostlund chatted with the Alibi on the phone about the weather in San Francisco (sunny), novel-writing (difficult) and the Internet (distracting).