First, you hand over some basics-overwhelming joy, existential angst, a giving-in to desire, etc. And then you promise to withstand talking idly about the weather, to encourage cliché, to uphold the virtues of average. You hand over the need to be understood and, in return, you get a bar of Normal soap. And you can wash in it and be daily reborn to a safe world of modest, enduring love or, at least, mild, well-mannered bonding.

Our stories are what we have,” Our Good Mother says. “Our stories preserve us. we give them to one another. Our stories have value. Do you understand?

Some of the best work done to combat the Republicans has been wit and humor.

I'm a writer of faith. I was raised Catholic, and I have a deeply Catholic imagination.

I'm a woman, but I've been a sexist, too.

I want women writers to write boldly, wildly, deeply. I want them to feel really liberated to tell the brutal truth, however they see that truth and are moved to tell it.

As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.