I am very bad at remembering the books I've read and so recently I had a wonderful experience. I decided I wanted to teach Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. I hadn't read it in twenty-five years. I was surprised to find how much I drew from that book. Stole from that book, learned from that book about writing. I had forgotten and there it was. Morrison has called that text faulted. I cannot see how.

John Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is very important to me as an influence. When I didn't know how to start Mr. Splitfoot, I just wrote the first line of As I Lay Dying instead and then continued on. It's dissolved in the text now, but it helped me start.

One book that has meant much to my writing is W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants. He uses a photograph of Vladimir Nabokov hunting butterflies in a similar way. The image or a reference to the image is traced throughout the four separate narratives. It sometimes seems to be the only link between the pieces, while the symbol Nabokov cuts remains wide open, a pencil sketch, a mystery to interpret outside his role as emigrant/observer.

I like the night. I like a slight terror to remind me how precious life is. Like I was sleeping with my smallest child and there were crazy coyotes howling outside. I knew how lucky I was to have her near me.

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?

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.

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.