The thing that grounds you, and the thing that really gives you a sense of wholeness, is your family, friends and your community. Those are the things that can mirror back to you what you're experiencing, and can affirm to you that the stories you are telling are true.

I started out as a poet who primarily wanted to write about image and moment. Over the years I've been trying to teach myself how to do plot and scene. My first story collection had the most issues with the plotlessness, and when I was writing my second collection I was teaching myself how to make things happen.

There's a lot of effort expended once you begin to completely trash your life. Sometimes, writing feels like this to me.

It had occurred to him that if the undead don't realize that they are dead, he might easily be one of them himself.

You know, the biggest indicator of where you live is your income. If you live in this suburb you make this much money, and if you live in that suburb, you make that much money, and if you don't have any money you live where you're allowed to live.

Imaginative empathy is one of the great gifts that humans have, and it means that we can live more than one life. We can picture what it would be like from another perspective.

I always worry that knowing too much about a novel or a story early on in writing will close it down - it feels fatalistic in some way.