Writers like Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Russell Banks, Carolyn Chute, Alice Walker, so many others that I read coming up as a writer, that helped form my ideas of what it means to be American - and an American writer. I'm always in conversation with them.
I'm really interested in the United States, what it means to be American - maybe because my father's an immigrant and my grandparents were immigrants, and also because I grew up so isolated from mainstream life, and it was such a total shock to leave the commune and, in a way, enter America for the first time when I was eleven - so I've always felt a little like an anthropologist - like, what is this strange place I find myself in, what are the rules here?
In general, I think every novel is a political novel, in that every novel is an argument about how the world works, who has power, who has a voice, what we should care about. But political novels can be boringly polemical if they end up being too black and white, too one dimensional, like war is bad, killing people is wrong.
My natural tendency is to fall in love with language and character and setting, and kind of forget about pacing. Narrative tension doesn't come naturally to me, and if it does feel fast-paced that makes me incredibly happy.
I think someone who writes a ghost story probably needs to believe it in some way.
There are so many people who write really interesting work and try super hard and still don't get published.
I've heard a lot of editors and agents say, "If the book is good, it will get published." I totally disagree with that.
I know books that are really good and writers that are really good and they have become oppressed and ground down from the rejection and they stop. Either they stop writing or they have these books in their drawers. I know that for a fact.
It's really difficult to know what is the best way forward when you're not getting a lot of support - and probably most writers aren't getting enough support.
I love ghost stories, I love to read them, and I love the idea of being haunted.
Nice girls are not supposed to be hungry. They are not supposed to feed themselves or care about their own food. They're definitely not supposed to take food out of a child's mouth.
It is radical for a woman to choose to survive and to choose to eat anything.
When I was in college, I had a friend who was an artist and her theory was that all the best art in the world is funny/sad. That was her favorite genre. Funny/sad are probably my two favorite tones.
I've always been a teaser, even as a kid.
Don't you think almost anything can be funny? Almost anything.
You can hurt people's feelings if you laugh.
When the kids were growing up, I think they thought the worst thing about me being a mom is that I would laugh at them. They would say something that they thought was serious and intense and I would laugh. I thought it was funny, but they don't want to be laughed at.
No one really wants to be laughed at.
I don't make fun of my characters. I just like to laugh and I think people are funny and the world is funny.
The "we" voice is rare, and the communal impulse of the "we" is interesting to me.
I laugh when I'm writing. I feel like all my work is funny to me.
