I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.

Why write stories? To join the conversation.

Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama.

The bottom line is I'm writing to save the dead. I'm writing to save the people I have lost, some of whose bodies are still walking around.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.

What's the best thing you can do for your writing? Construct a boring life.