Writers like Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Russell Banks, Carolyn Chute, Alice Walker, so many others that I read coming up as a writer, that helped form my ideas of what it means to be American - and an American writer. I'm always in conversation with them.

Writers like Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Russell Banks, Carolyn Chute, Alice Walker, so many others that I read coming up as a writer, that helped form my ideas of what it means to be American - and an American writer. I'm always in conversation with them.

Nice girls are not supposed to be hungry. They are not supposed to feed themselves or care about their own food. They're definitely not supposed to take food out of a child's mouth.

There are so many people who write really interesting work and try super hard and still don't get published.

I laugh when I'm writing. I feel like all my work is funny to me.

Don't you think almost anything can be funny? Almost anything.

I love ghost stories, I love to read them, and I love the idea of being haunted.