I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story.

The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up.

I'm not very interested in telling the facts. I have a lot of investment in telling the truth.

Praise Roxane Gay for her big-hearted self-examining intelligence, for her inclusive and forgiving stance, for her courage and determination . . . for saying out loud the things we were thinking, for guiding us back to ourselves and returning to us what was ours all along.

Do you write novels?" I said. "Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.

Traveling is my priority, because it drives the writing, so I teach around the travel, and sometimes the travel is the teaching.

Life gives us what we need when we need it; receiving what it gives us is a whole other thing.