If we do not begin to practice the muscles of having a possessive investment in each other's oppressions, then we are in some serious trouble.

I've been trying to write. I also spent a lot of time on different campuses, in conversation, helping other writers. That's what I do: I teach them writing.

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 am a chatty person, but colossally discreet.

Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.

...sometimes a start is all we ever get.

You're the only person I've ever met who can stand a bookstore as long as I can.