Interviews

“ I wanted poetry to do the impossible, to bridge the gap that death creates. But the more time I spent with her stories, the more time I had to acknowledge all of the ways poetry creates survival, too. I…

“I just wanted to write about these fun, spooky stories, and the way that stories become a part of a place, of the bearers and receivers of those stories, how their telling is a cycle and an inheritance. I also…

“Stories make information stick. They give our experiences shape, emotion, and meaning. That’s why I wanted this book to be practical, so anyone can take the tools of storytelling and use them in real life, at work, in school, and…

“I’ve never seen my novels as being about me. Catt is my avatar but I’m writing about the things, people, themes, and histories that are close and important to me, the things I know most intimately. I really can’t write…

“ I wanted the story to be a tight ball of yarn even though there were a million strands. It had to be tight to keep a reader’s interest, so there was an element of looping back almost like a…

“I think “escape” does work in that we all need to escape our constraints. How we escape them is the question. Do you escape by breaking down the structures? Or do you escape control by finding ways to accomplish what…

“Poems allow me to work toward momentary clarity or to see a problem through a metaphor that makes it something I can work upon or live with in a way that always feels like a blessing or some kind of…

“So I have deep empathy for people who are shook, whether because they’re young or they just haven’t been especially into politics until fairly recently. I get that, I really do. But it’s important to channel that initial shocked panic.…

“Previously, I found there was so much anxiety, like, “I’ve written this entire thing. Am I gonna get a book deal or is all that effort just going to go down the toilet?” Because I knew the book was going…

“I have learned over the years to control what I am willing to let go of. What I mean by that is, I think writers often underestimate how once you put something into print, it is no longer yours. It…

“I always thought that Patricia Highsmith was such a genius at this in the Ripley books. Ripley is such an unlikeable person, but you so desperately want him to get the things that he wants, even though he’s this horrendous,…