If I were really fluent and born into the English language, I would probably become a greater writer.

This is my first collaboration [with Mary Hamill] so I'm going to learn how it's going to work.

I'd like to do more collaborations because collaboration creates different viewpoints.

I have a great advantage: I write from the perspective of my own voice. I'm not copying anyone's voice. It's my voice. I have the advantage of being a writer of English as a second language.

I think every writer has their waves of inspiration and their ways of doing things. But writing is very difficult for me. It's something I haven't practiced as diligently as my visual art. I've been doing visual art because I think it's easier for me to construct, whereas words are very difficult.

The family I grew up in had three generations of widows.

I think there are things I can't write in English that I wish I could write in Khmer.