I wanted to preserve the feeling of remembering her just months after her death - the raw immediacy of it, so the drafts were really about getting th….

I talk about it a lot to my students. Musicality never came up in any of own writing education, and I can see why - we don't have the vocabulary for ….

Sometimes I can listen to music - sometimes there's no choice, especially if I'm out writing at a coffee place. But sometimes it's too distracting. I….

Sometimes I need silence; sometimes I need voices around - but not too loud or distinctive. I guess it depends on the piece in question, what stage I….

One way to be aware of it, to teach to yourself, is simply to read work aloud. I love reading the endings of books aloud when I start nearing the end..

I start with voice, maybe a sentence. That sentence might embody an image, and I go from there. One sentence to the next. Sound drives the work these….

I think each of my books attempts to create its own voice so I'm not even sure I have a signature style, other than certain descriptive tendencies, a….

I wanted to dissolve the boundary between the outside world and the world of the relationships. Those events, with exception of the Mt. Saint Helens ….

I think the most reliable way to teach it is through reading work aloud over and over. Many prose writers been encouraged to do that, but that might ….

I think my methods are more suggestive than assertive. Check out those passages again and see what you think..