I moved to New York with the derangement of love. I was writing all these terrible stories, but I had never been happier.

It's funny, for a long time I would go watermelon-red and deny that I was a magical realist. It felt imprecise to me, a misrepresentation.

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

I swim with all my strength. No superhuman surge, or pony heroics; it's just me at my most desperate.

When I was younger I used to lock myself in the bathroom and read in the dry tub. I was also a fan of the 'shoe closet.' Reading felt thrilling and illicit and deeply private to me, and I felt vulnerable doing it in public.

The girl has a funny way of romanticizing things.

I would love to travel around the world working for a travel company taking students abroad on cultural immersion trips.