So often we think of a wound or a loss as making a person feel more deeply, become a better person. But I don't think that always happens. I think it can constrict people's lives, especially if they don't push beyond it.

I'm always interested in encountering people who are synesthetic and seeing how they experience things.

In my writing classes, I don't outlaw any genre writing.

I have what I came to find in my research is a mild form of synesthesia, though I never would have labeled it as such. It's how I think about numbers and letters. They all have inherent genders.

When I watch students make particular decisions about language, structure, and form, it sharpens my own thinking and my own development as a writer.

There's always something else to work on and different solutions to these problems in the next thing. We each have a certain set of obsessions which we each cycle through.

In general, teaching writing makes me a far better reader because there's so many ways to write a good sentence or a good story, and as a teacher I'm obliged to consider them all, rather than staying in the safety of my own tendencies.