We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has to do with writing that isn't necessarily just writing saleable novels or getting huge advances.

You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

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

Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.

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

Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.

Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.