Interviews

I don’t think we can find a way forward without facing what we have done to each other and our home.

To me [metaphor] feels connected to the heart of fiction: I’m making a whole fantastical thing in order to capture the essence of a real state or feeling, in order to give myself a language for it.

Poetry is the form of brevity. I wonder if his artistic view ultimately inspired me.

How am I complicit in this moment? How might I do better the next time I’m faced with a similar moment of choice?

Sometimes the book had to reveal itself to me, advice I really hated that I received but is so true.

I think language will always fail in some ways, that no matter how well we write, the words will ultimately never fully capture and convey an experience.

Nature is scary-beautiful, especially in the backcountry. I always carry a simmering fear of what I’ll find or what will find me alone on the trail: bears, storms, men.

That's a concern that one might have in the middle of one’s life: “How much time do I have left? What did I not do? What do I still need to do?”

If you are reading the story of the last human on Earth, then you should expect to have to do some work.

I want to see a novel with POC characters but that’s the least interesting part of the book. . . . Just write a great book that happens to inhabit this world.

When entering a narrative that has great emotion, it’s important to commit to capturing the emotion and portraying it. But also knowing when to stop.