If we truly seek diversity in fiction, we have to let the needs of others come before our need to define ourselves as social justice allies.

Strength isn't about bearing a cross of grief or shame. Strength comes from choosing your own path, and living with the consequences.

Occasionally, the horrors of life in North Korea do show up in our American satire.

The attitude of, I will never self-publish, coming from any author, indicates that they have never been in a position where it is their only option.

No one's place in this world is guaranteed. Not everyone is going to get a happy ending. But life isn't about how it ends. It's about the moments between. It's about the small things. The way our loved ones laugh. The sight of a butterfly in the sunlight after a year or two in the darkness. The love and support of an old friend. They might not be with us in body, but they are with us in spirit. ... Because every day, on this planet, people are born and people die and stranger things happen.(Armintrout, All Souls' Night, 367)

One minute she acts like she wants to be with me and I'm the one rejecting her. The next, she's got this barbed wire fence and barking dogs around her, like I can't even ask her the simplest questions." "And here I was assuming you didn't care about her." Stabbing his fingers through his hair, he groaned, "I don't!" "And you make it perfectly clear." Men. Idiots.

I am sorry the only outlet for her troubled mind was in clumsy foreplay with an inadequate partner." He threw the rest of her sandwich at the swinging door as she passed through it.