On Writing
Breaking Taboos and Loving the Characters We Fear
“I turned to Toni Morrison and Jamaica Kincaid. Their work documenting sexuality, especially female sexuality, gave me permission to write my own.”
My Movement from Dancing to Writing
“Was I replacing one language with another, one way of communicating with another?”
Learning to Be Embarrassed on the Page
“To risk something real as a writer is to risk making a fool of oneself.”
Reading for an Audience
“The closest my chosen literary life comes to the stage.”
Dipping the Pen Nib Into Tragedy
“It meant not constantly trying to get readers to feel pity for my characters, which was what I’d been doing for way too long.”
Surrendering to a 41-page Paragraph
“In his attempt to make something balanced, measured, conventionally well-made, the writer is defeated from the start.”
Writing the Canon of Now
“Our stories are like a glittering, infinitely faceted gem.”
On Serving Knausgaard Coffee and an Omelet
“It’s hard to say why this work means so much to me. You sense the cost of it. It is vulnerable. It feels necessary.”