Every Athlete Learns By Theft And Mimicry.

You Do Not Learn How To Write Novels In A Writing Program. You Learn How By Leading An Interesting Life. Open Yourself Up To All Experience. Let Life Pour Through You The Way Light Pours Through Leaves.

My Wound Is Geography. It Is Also My Anchorage, My Port Of Call.

To Describe Our Growing Up In The Lowcountry Of South Carolina, I Would Have To Take You To The Marsh On A Spring Day, Flush The Great Blue Heron From Its Silent Occupation, Scatter Marsh Hens As We Sink To Our Knees In Mud, Open An Oyster With A Pocketknife And Feed It To You From The Shell And Say, 'there. That Taste. That's The Taste Of My Childhood.'

Here's What I Love: When A Great Writer Turns Me Into A Jew From Chicago, A Lesbian Out Of South Carolina, Or A Black Woman Moving Into A Subway Entrance In Harlem. Turn Me Into Something Else, Writers Of The World. Make Me Muslim, Heretic, Hermaphrodite. Put Me Into A Crusader's Armor, A Cardinal's Vestments. Let Me Feel The Pygmy's Heartbeat, The Queen's Breast, The Torturer's Pleasure, The Nile's Taste, Or The Nomad's Thirst. Tell Me Everything That I Must Know. Hold Nothing Back.

Do You Think That Hemingway Knew He Was A Writer At Twenty Years Old? No, He Did Not. Or Fitzgerald, Or Wolfe. This Is A Difficult Concept To Grasp. Hemingway Didn't Know He Was Ernest Hemingway When He Was A Young Man. Faulkner Didn't Know He Was William Faulkner. But They Had To Take The First Step. They Had To Call Themselves Writers. That Is The First Revolutionary Act A Writer Has To Make. It Takes Courage. But It's Necessary