I am worthy of being read. I mean, one has to be convinced of one's genius.

I try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions. There's a big taboo in fiction creative writing workshops against using the self at all, and I think I try to encourage students to write the self, but to connect the self to something larger, which is to be this thinking, seeing, searching, eternally curious person, and that writing can come out of investigating and trying to understand confusion, and doubts, and obsessions.

I think the female first-person is still dismissed, demonized, especially if the book does not end on an empowering note, especially if the main character is perceived as unlikeable, or too privileged.

I think the key to writing the truth of our existences, so much of this is being incubated online, is examining the conflicts and the messiness, our sometimes dividedness, dealing with gender and other hierarchies, and also our identities outside of them, deeply personal and yet somehow critical and circumspect.

One of my moments of coming to writing, of needing to write to attempt to create myself, to attempt to absolve and understand my past passivity, came when a girl I loved very much, who I had been estranged from for some time, killed herself.

On the whole, most biographies about literary women tend to diagnose them.

I think that writing and publishing are different. I think I will always write; I might not always publish. The idea of not publishing is wonderful!