You don't have to be the specialist on everything. You can try to inform yourself.

When I have a writing workshop, I like to have people that are anthropologists and people who are poking around in other fields, I like to have them all in the same workshop, and not worry about genre. I like to mix it up, because the kind of comments you can get from a fiction writer about your poetry are going to be very different than what you'll get from a poet. Or the comments you'll get from a filmmaker about your performance are going to be very different. My writing workshop is about mixing it up, cross-pollinating, not only in genres but in occupations.

I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone whos busy and has too many children, like my mother.

When I'm starting to feel, "How many more people are there?" I go slower. I ask questions, and that person engaging with me gives me energy.

My friend, Dennis Mathis, was reading Eastern European and Japanese experimental writers, and I brought the Latin American writers to his attention, so we exchanged books and bounced off one another.

If you just breathe, and go slower, you will have enough energy. It's really important because there are people who wait in line, and your work has changed their lives. You will need to listen to them because they are also going to feed you and give you confirmation of the prayer you asked before you spoke.

Each book gets harder, each book gets harder and harder. I always feel like crying when I have to write.