Invader and invaded held on to their fistfuls of earth, but in the end, the earth outlived the hands that held it.

My work often begins as little internal dares, wondering if I can pull something off. So I spent a few years drawing these stories together, trying to build a Pangea of what began as separate continents.

From personal experience, I completely agree that it is often easier to go for monotone sadness. When I was starting out, I wrote a gazillion short stories that ran the gamut of human suffering - drug addiction, child abuse, terminal illness, loved ones dying by all manner of misfortune, etc. In hindsight, it's clear that I mistook the power of the situation for the power of the story.

You are a coward,' she said, and with that one word wrote a denunciation, a biography, and a prophecy.

Invader and invaded held on to their fistfuls of earth, but in the end, the earth outlived the hands that held it.

Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

Inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce, and that is who we are.