I find reading to be a delight, a source of comfort, a way to explore.

Clavo saca clavo. Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her.

She would be a new person, she vowed. They said no matter how far a mule travels it can never come back a horse, but she would show them all.

As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality.

We know story collections end when they end, as well - the pages serving as a countdown - but nevertheless the standard story anthology hews closer to what makes being human so hard: it reminds you with each story how quickly everything we are, everything we call our lives can change, can be upended, can disappear. Never to return.

I came up under [Ronald] Reagan and under [George] Bush, and what are we to do now? We are here to fight. People can run off all they want. But for me, [Donald] Trump is already in the Dominican Republic.

To produce that identity among young people required guinea pigs.