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.

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

I had never written about what it's like to live the life of a writer, and I had never read a book that combined talking about the life of writing and how you can do it, how you can stand it, how you can emotionally manage it, with the choices that we all make on the page.

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

I find that I get very excited about what my students are up to and that I get to be the hurdle they need to jump over.

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

Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.