The mechanics of plot and the market-driven expectations that drive most American novels kept me from attempting fiction for a long time.

I know a teacher’s role is not to be an analyst. Actually, I don’t know this. I don’t know why it would be wrong to bring up where the energy of the text is, where the elisions are. To some degree, you move the writer before they can move their text. That’s what I mean by permission. It isn’t the silent listener at the end of a couch but it feels that way – waiting for a writer to face their anxieties, their resistances.

The first thing to remember is that the government has never, ever respected your privacy. At least not since post-WWI and the Communist threat in America. They’ve been opening your mail for years. They’ve been wire-tapping without warrants for years. The only difference is that it’s easier now.

I feel like various dead writers are dear friends of mine -- from Woolf to Plath to Duras to DFW -- their lives and lessons and warnings and urgings are constantly informing my own, challenging my own.

The laughing reader doesn’t feel the knife until it’s in his chest. The reader who is laughing at something they don’t think they should be laughing at experiences a catharsis. I’d argue that’s more valuable than providing someone with an orgasm.