It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you’d eaten the same thing. Reminded you there were good days in life, when precious little else did. (268)

Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader.

One of my goals is to allow readers to see my characters and the world they inhabit as vividly as possible.

It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start

We had some good times at school. I didn't know how good those times were until I left, but I guess that's the way of it

A place where something so terrible had happened shouldn't continue to exist in the world

What I've become convinced makes a writer are the days you hate it, the days you'd rather stick those pencils in your eyes. Sometimes I almost punish myself - if I'm not going be able to write, I'm not going be able to do anything else. I just sit there and wait.