If There's A Black Cat

A Lot Of My Work Comes From A Place Of Despair Or Fear. I Often Write In Order To Gain Some Sort Of Control Over Aspects Of My Life Or The World That Seem Too Dark To Look At Directly.

When I Was Small And Easily Wounded Books Were My Carapace. If I Were Recalled To My Hurts In The Middle Of A Book They Somehow Mattered Less. My Corporeal Life Was Slight The Dazzling One In My Head Was What Really Mattered. Returning To Books Was Coming Home.

I Don't Believe That Fiction Is Dead. I Know There Are Some People Who Believe That It's An Outdated Art Form, And That To Express Truth Today You Need To Work In Different Forms, To Write Books Where It's Perhaps Not Clear What's Fiction And What's Memoir. I Have Nothing Against Those Books And Love Many Of Them Very Much. But We Have Enough Space For Everyone, Traditional Realists And Hybrid Writers, And Experimental Writers All.

I Want To Be Identified As A Writer, Not A Southern Writer, Not A Woman Writer, Not A Woman From This Or That Place, But Unfortunately It Doesn't Always Happen.

It's Wonderful That Nothing You Write Is Ever Going To Be As Beautiful As What's In Your Head, Because That Gap Is Where The Art Can Enter And Begin To Stretch Its Limbs.