Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words - words are your friends.

My mother cranes her neck. Her ability to be fascinated by things is her best gift to me.

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

Asthmatic immigrant learns to breathe by writing.

Satire always benefits when evil and stupidity collide.

I reveled in the smallness, the coziness of an upstairs bedroom in a traditional American Cape Cod house the half-floor that forces you to duck, to feel small and naive again, ready for anything, dying for love, your body a chimney filled with odd, black smoke. These square, squat, awkward rooms are like a fifty-square-foot paean to teenage-hood, to ripeness, to the first and last taste of youth.

Michigan, with its delicious American name. How lucky one must be to live there.