I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.

I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.

One of the biggest changes that ever occurred in my life was going from the isolation of working part-time as a house painter in Henderson County, to Cornell, where everybody was a literary person.

We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

Young writers only take off when they find their subjects. Since almost everyone has a family and stories about family, that is often a place to start.