Giving the reader the space to move around and be active, and encourage their active response is important to me. That will connect the reader more to the text.

Another obligation that I have as a teacher is to make available to students a range of options and devices and approaches, rather than saying "well here's one way to do it and that's the only way that's good."

I am fascinated by tiny, incremental changes, almost imperceptible shifts in how people orient themselves in the world, because those are in some ways the most hopeful.

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

I felt sure about wanting to look at a person's life that had been limited or damaged, but not necessarily ennobled, by loss.

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

Portland is a pretty magnificent place to live.