Teenagers are free verse walking around on two legs.

Don't go taking that gospel stuff seriously. It's nice to clean you out now and then, but it ain't for real. It's like bad whiskey. Run through you fast and leave you with pain.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.

And of course these days I feel like there is a nation of us - displaced southerners and children of the working class. We listen to Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, and k.d. lang. We devour paperback novels and tell evil mean stories, value stubbornness above patience and a sense of humor more than a college education. We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained. And let me promise you, you do not want to make us angry.

People begin to write in order to create what they have not found and, a little bit, to give something back.

Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different..." from Two or Three Things i Know For Sure