I'm interested in how the confessional is so abrasively critiqued today. I'm not really comfortable with simply confessing but I do think "confessing" is a major part of reckoning.

I'm an obsessive writer who needs and loves revision. Writing helps me learn and helps me teach.

One of the problems with a lot of "confessional" writing is that it starts and stops with the confessional and doesn't really tie the "I" into a "we" at all. I'm still surprised at how mad critics get at that kind of confessional writing.

I'm a black writer from Mississippi. That's what I most consider myself.

I'm also, than anything else, a teacher and a student. And without the four hours, I'm pretty monsterish. For real.

I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.

Not so deep down, we all know that safety is an illusion, that only character melds us together. That’s why most of us do everything we can (healthy and unhealthy) to ward off that real feeling of standing alone so close to the edge of the world.