I read a lot when I was in school in the United States, and even though writing in English is very difficult for me, I wrote in journals.

I've been coming to Cambodia off and on, six months of the year usually.

I have some advantages of viewing from the two lenses, the two perspectives. I think that a lot of visual artists who come back here from the United States and are Cambodian also write from their American references - looking inside the old culture, and looking at themselves as an American looking into the country where they were born.

Art is really about how you capture different things you see around you and bring them into forms and words and shapes and meaning.

I don't approach my writing or my work from an academic or analytical point of view. I do it for myself.

In Cambodian culture the male figure in the family is important; when you lose your husband you lose your economic ability to survive.

Whether I affect one person or an entire family, or even a group of people, I feel like I have resources and education and ability and skills that some people may not be fortunate enough to acquire. But by sharing and inquiring, being a listener, and being interested in the stories of other people and their lives, I can also pull things out and say "What can I do for them? What can I share with them that may alleviate some of their suffering?"