I think the mad wives and mistresses are my hysterics - even the fictionalized ones. I want to trace how they were silenced, I want to find for them an escape route.

My rage and sense of alienation as to how women have been written, have allowed themselves to be written, in so many ways, has political roots.

I do teach fiction and non-fiction, and usually I'm interested in works that confuse genre, but I'm very new to teaching creative writing, I don't have an MFA, or a PhD, I tend to approach it just through my own practice.

All of my wildness is in the writing. I have discovered I have to be orderly and boring in my personal life to be wild in my work.

Patriarchy is having the power to name.

The nonfiction novel or literary memoir as authored by women is usually given a much harder time in mainstream criticism.

I don't think men experience the embargo on channeling the autobiography in their literature.