No one really wants to be laughed at.

I've heard a lot of editors and agents say, "If the book is good, it will get published." I totally disagree with that.

I've always been a teaser, even as a kid.

When I was in college, I had a friend who was an artist and her theory was that all the best art in the world is funny/sad. That was her favorite genre. Funny/sad are probably my two favorite tones.

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

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

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.