I'll just tell you what I remember because memory is as close as I've gotten to building my own time machine.

I am a toggler. I always have three or four projects going, short stories alongside novels and essays. When one project is terrible, there's somewhere else hopeful to look.

I think I write mostly about death and so it is interesting to hear how often people think I'm writing about pregnancy and birth. Though of course they are two sides of the same coin. Both when I was pregnant and now as a mother, I am consumed with thoughts of death. This is a strange role in parenting. The death guardian.

When I was learning to write I was surrounded by poets; Brian Blanchfield and Annie Guthrie were always with me as I was learning. I'm so grateful for the poets in my life. Because of them I always knew the importance of each word, line.

There's a voice when I write. I speak everything aloud. My family is so accustomed to me talking to myself that often times they don't answer me when I am trying to speak to one of them.

I became a writer because I am the youngest of six children. I listen; I observe. I'm camouflaged as a moth. Mothers are unseen. It helps me write.

Much of the writing I do about the female body is to remind women, myself included, that they make life and they make death. That strikes me as a far more powerful stance than the weak lies told about mothering.