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Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to actually show up somewhere. While others who have...more

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For too long, and despite what people told me, I had fallen for what the culture said about beauty, youth, features, heights, weights, hair textures, ...more

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I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all...more

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If you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty ...more

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The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that need...more

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If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it.

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Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the trut...more

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Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of everyone with whom I come into contast as a patient in the emergency room...more

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Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram--it's the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar.

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We stitch together quilts of meaning to keep us warm and safe, with whatever patches of beauty and utility we have on hand.

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Rituals are a good signal to your unconscious that it is time to kick in.

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You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. You need to trust yourself, especially on a fir...more

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I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are th...more

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You want to avoid at all costs drawing your characters on those that already exist in other works of fiction. You must learn about people from people,...more

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A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of th...more