You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident.

When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.

Sometimes people want to know how to write a story from the point of view of a murderer and make her sympathetic. I think the answer is that you start by having her look for her car keys, because everybody knows what it's like.

Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how well we're doing.

I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.

I don't think a white person can write accurately and convincingly about what black people experience of oppression.

Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.