Interviews

“Writing that first draft gives me all the information that I need to make a really strong second draft. It’s a rehearsal, in a way. It was almost like doing improv in that world so that I could write the…

“You can go ahead and read what you want into whatever you want. That’s on you. Someone reads it and they think it’s about a particular thing, or they think it’s all true or all fake. I’m totally fine with…

“The thing about writing a memoir is, if you write yourself into a corner, you can only get out by telling the truth. Making something up to bridge a problem area is not available to you. With a novel, you…

“I did a lot of research about Monet, in the course of writing this book, and he was known in his time for having many paintings in progress simultaneously, working outdoors on a landscape canvas with a bunch of partially…

“For me, a central question of the novel as well is language and the failure of language. I think many of these people are imprisoned by language and their inability to say what they want to say or remember what…

“It is very hard to dramatize something tiny onstage. But on the page something microscopic can contain magnitudes of consequence—not to mention time. The playwright’s basic unit is time. You’ll have two hours of the audience’s time. You are forcing…

“I think fiction feels safer. If I’m writing a short story, I don’t usually call up my friend and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about putting this line you said in there.” There was initially a scene from my life that…

“ I don’t like reading books where you can feel the writer fiddling with you and admiring themselves as they manipulate the words on the page. I don’t love a self-congratulatory writer—you can sniff it on the page immediately—more than…

“I love writing humor; it’s what gets me to my desk. The humor comes pretty naturally, which is part practice and part good luck. It’s baked into my worldview. Whenever I’m starting something new, I’ll have this moment of terror…

“I’m fascinated by poetry that reaches complex, new ideas through the most ordinary words. It reminds us that fire, that hypnotic, powerful force, is nothing more than a spark born from two simple pieces of wood. I suppose I long…

“​​Countries with a history born of colonialism understand intimately that the perversion of the power dynamics in the relationships we see in today’s tourist economy isn’t anything new. It’s just a remix of the same old dynamic. As someone who…