Writing about your community is difficult for any writer.

Once your writing is out there, you can't control how other people perceive it. All you can do is stand in your truth.

I was born on the same day as Edgar Allan Poe and Dolly Parton: January 19. I am absolutely certain that this affects my writing in some way.

The critiques I received from my father's community didn't actually have to do with any of the things I'd been afraid of - spiritual or cultural aspects - they were more annoyed that I'd killed off this character or those characters hadn't hooked up or I'd done an open ending and it didn't give them a sense of closure that they were expecting.

In general, I'm careful when I'm dealing with subjects of deep cultural importance and write with abandon when I'm dealing with issues of personal dysfunction.

We can be the new brand of self-extincting dinosaurs or we can evolve.

Our ability to turn off empathy for specific kinds of humans and then use faulty logic to justify our beliefs is messily sociopathic.