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

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

As a teenager and into my early twenties I lived in a geodesic dome on a mountain. No running water, no phone, real rustic. I loved it. One night, there by myself, I was terrified. I was up in the loft trying to sleep but I couldn't because I was so scared to be that alone. I knew I'd never lose my fear if I didn't address it so I went outside in my undies and waited for the darkness to come and kill me. But it didn't. It was beautiful and calm and even kind. I went back to bed eventually.

My father thought a novel was a broken short story. There's something to that. Many of my favorite novels are novellas. The authors of brief things must reckon with the precision of language.

I would like to give you more of my heart,but there is nothing more I can give you. I gave you everything and you crushed it into bits.

One night as I girl I spied my grandma and one of her sisters outside, holding hands and singing, "Sprites of the night are we, are we. Singing and dancing joyfully." It was witchy and wonderful because it meant there was power in joy. They were not afraid of the night because they were giggling. I am very interested in finding the surprising boundaries, for instance, where do joy and fear meet?

There's definitely a voice and I always speak my work aloud. I have a lot of old people in my head, most of them dead now, but I always hear how they would say things, my grandparents and my neighbors.