I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots--things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story--readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what you expect, not the easy answers you get on TV, not wash and wear philosophies, but a reproduction of believable, emotional experiences.

As a writer, you get to bring attention to something without preaching. I don't believe in being didactic. So if you dramatize something, you automatically bring attention to it if people read it.

We never thought some guy would deliberately fill our hearts with brown sugar and then pour hot water all over it.

I used to get a lot of letters from prisoners. It used to get on my nerves. Especially family members. Everybody's innocent.

Pay attention to the things that agitate you. It will tell you a lot about yourself.

Look, as my mama always said, 'One monkey don't stop no show.

I love writing in first person more than third. I have to basically suspend my own world. I don't exist. I'm just a conduit. So I can be eight years old. I can be the mother of a kid that you find out certain things I'm not going to say.