Consider the difference between the first and third person in poetry [...] It's like the difference between looking at a person and looking through their eyes.

Cultural identity is of course connected to this issue. When I was younger, it was inspiring to write about the people that raised me, especially their near-insane struggle to live between America and Middle East. But like many writers, I want to paint on as broad a canvas as possible.

If you only write for 15 minutes at a time, you can write a book and still have time for Legos.

The question of identity has always been a murky issue in my own life and my writing bounces that right back. My father was adamant that my sisters and I were "Arab," and even though our house was in Syracuse, it was filled with the food, language, music, and overbearing relatives of Jordan. Unlike my gorgeous sisters, though, I inherited my mother's lighter complexion - it really is amazing what a difference a little bit of pigment can make on a person's experience!

I heard friends and strangers saying, "You don't look Arab - what are you supposed to be?" It really is a tired old problem for children of immigrants and kids of mixed race, constantly trying to explain yourself. Eventually, you give up and say, "Okay, what do you think I am?" When you're in the midst of it, you come to understand that "race" is a loose social construct, a series of visual impressions, and that your identity can be whatever the hell crazy thing you want it to be, you just have to grow a sense of humor and cultivate selective deafness.

Here is something you have to understand about stories: They point you in the right direction but they can't take you all the way there. Stories are crescent moons; they glimmer in the night sky, but they are most exquisite in their incomplete state. Because people crave the beauty of not-knowing, the excitement of suggestion, and the sweet tragedy of mystery.

Love and prayer are intimately related.