Think of the road as a kind of zone and a site of incredible diversity.

As a woman I have felt encouraged and fed by and nurtured by the work of [Jack] Kerouac and others.

You really felt a radical shift in the advance of a poetics that had really been engendered by [Walt] Whitman. This was very exciting. I wanted to work in this environment.

I was raised with a sense of democratic vistas and egalitarianism.

Think of the road as a kind of zone and a site of incredible diversity.

I remember being caught in this earthquake in Mexico City and having a sense of people coming before me, of being part of this lineage. I felt similarly when I went to India and South America.

I was not ever hitchhiking alone. I've done solo train trips but I've never driven myself alone.