Discourse about motherhood is chillingly narrow-minded. It's a tool the patriarchy uses, of course. So people complain about their kids or they compl….

Film maker Andi Olsen has a wonderful short film called Where the Smiling Ends. She waited at the Trevi Fountain in Rome and filmed the tourists only….

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 d….

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..

There's a voice when I write. I speak everything aloud. My family is so accustomed to me talking to myself that often times they don't answer me when….

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 h….

Much of the writing I do about the female body is to remind women, myself included, that they make life and they make death. That strikes me as a far….

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 fo….

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….

As a teenager and into my early twenties I lived in a geodesic dome on a mountain. No running water, no phone, real rustic. I loved it. One night, th….

I think I write mostly about death and so it is interesting to hear how often people think I'm writing about pregnancy and birth. Though of course th….

One last important influence I'll mention is Flannery O'Connor. In high school I shoplifted her Complete Stories. Having read "Good Country People" f….

I am a toggler. I always have three or four projects going, short stories alongside novels and essays. When one project is terrible, there's somewher….

I would like to give you more of my heart,but there is nothing more I can give you. I gave you everything and you crushed it into bits..

My father thought a novel was a broken short story. There's something to that. Many of my favorite novels are novellas. The authors of brief things m….

The lion's share of my work is revision, 85%? I revise forever, combing over lines, listening and listening to them in different hours and moods so t….

Wait," I say. "I think you're mistaken. Saying there is no dream is the same as saying everything is a dream. Isn't it? Everyone's a dreamer? Extraor….

As a writer I feel more like a filter than a performer. I absorb and observe and then I name scatterings of stars into constellations. I don't usuall….

There is nothing more important to our survival, nothing more dignified than learning how to take care of others, how to serve and teach people with ….

There's definitely a voice and I always speak my work aloud. I have a lot of old people in my head, most of them dead now, but I always hear how they….

I am surprisingly optimistic, though lately that's been hard to maintain. Art and slow, small, close gestures help remind me of my optimism..