My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather. One such melting occurs in summer rain, at midnight, during the vine-green breathing time right before sleep. You have to ask the right question, throw the right rope bridge, to get there-and then bolt across the chasm between you, before your bridge collapses.

Sometimes, when you're writing sentence by sentence, you're not really sure what footprints you're going to fall into, or what ghosts might appear.

It is a special kind of homelessness to be evicted from your dreams.

What passes for news is just morbid speculation or cartoonish screaming, followed by diaper commercials.

Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive.

Regret is a pilgrimage back to the place where I was free to choose.

When you're a kid, it's hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.