I love to write, so it rarely seems like work - even when it gets arduous.

Or maybe I'd do what I always do - hang out and see what develops. Fatalist to the core.

I love to write, so it rarely seems like work - even when it gets arduous.

The loneliness of another can be shocking when it lays itself bare without warning.

We were supposed to grow old together, Dolores. Have kids. Take walks under old trees. I wanted to watch the lines etch themselves into your flesh and know when each and every one of them appeared. Die together.

Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there's another family and that's the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they're as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don't have to look out for you and they don't have to love you. They choose to.

Visitation Street is urban opera writ large. Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda’s voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it’s indelibly her own.