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

For me, the term "literary fiction" means there's always attention paid to language, and linguistic experimentation, sophistication.

My favorite classes were always dumb nerdy vocabulary.

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

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.

So much of the way books get classified has to do with marketing decisions. I think it's more useful to think of literary books and sci-fi/fantasy books as existing on a continuum.

The beginning of the end can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it.