I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't try to write through it, to force it. Many do, but that won't work. Just wait, it will come.

Anything dead coming back to life hurts.

In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.

Sometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don't feel safe.