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If you just go get one of these little fine arts degrees or writing program degrees, it never forces you to confront your responsibility as narrator, ...more

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I want hard stories, I demand them from myself. Hard stories are worth the difficulty. It seems to me the only way I have forgiven anything, understoo...more

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Write to your fear.

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Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

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What are you so angry about?" my mother had asked me the last time I had gone home to visit.Why aren't you more angry, I had wanted to ask her. But I ...more

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I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

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Before I published any of my own stories, I read a great many stories by people as passionate about writing as I was, and I learned something from eve...more

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Why write stories? To join the conversation.

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I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my terrors and helplessness, ...more