PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success.

I was trying to make a novel about something no one wanted to read about into something they couldn't put down or look away from.

As writer pay declined and teacher pay also, we all started hanging out online. You could say online social networks cheapen our friendships or you could say we were cheapened by a plutocratic power grab and this is all we can afford.

The way some were entrapped into lives of prostitution, the way that something like marriage could rob them of their rights.

I have lived for a long time inside a series of coincidences that most people would find implausible in a novel.

Each source that I read, I would look through the bibliography and the footnotes, and use that as a map for the next thing I would read.

Writers aren't born, they're made - from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine.