From Mother you will inherit the belief that you can journey to your fate, there's a place to be located on a map that's destiny. If only you can get there. If it isn't too late. If no one stops you.

My parents inspired me by their example. They both grew up in the Depression, and both of them had to quit school when they were quite young to work, because there actually was no choice. So they've always impressed me with their resilience, their good spirits, their courage. I just remember them carrying on and just doing their lives. They really made a strong impression on me.

It is important for me to discover the ideal title, for without this title the story or novel isn't quite in focus.

you're an insomniac, you tell yourself: there are profound truths revealed only to the insomniac by night like those phosphorescent minerals veined and glimmering in the dark but coarse and ordinary otherwise; you have to examine such minerals in the absence of light to discover their beauty, you tell yourself.

I write so much because my cat sits on my lap. She purrs so I don't want to get up. She's so much more calming than my husband.

Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely hackwork.

Only when you have completed a novel, or a story, can you return to the beginning and revise or rewrite.