Even in so-called realist or conventional writing there can be defamiliarization.

The act of language or the act of denying language carries its own heaviness.

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

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.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, I felt myself drawn to writing a female character who was pretty flawed and not very virtuous or wonderful or attractive in these ways that throughout literary history we've come to expect female characters to be.

It just fascinates me, those private mechanisms that we use to make sense of the world - whether they have to do with the five senses or not. I think literature is one of the only kinds of art that truly lets us into that.

Sometimes you just feel like you could work forever on something and never know when it's done.