I Won't Walk Under Scaffolding Or Under

She Would Always Feel This Wild Girl Was The Truest Of Any Of The People She Had Already Been: Adored Daughter, Bourgeois Priss, Rebel, Runaway, Dope-fiend San Francisco Hippie; Or All The People She Would Later Be: Mother, Nurse, Religious Fanatic, Prematurely Old Woman. Vivienne Was A Human Onion, And When I Came Home At Twenty Eight Years Old On The Day The Monster Died, I Was Afraid That The Baptist Freak She Had Peeled Down To Was Her True, Acrid, Tear-inducing Core.

I Think I'm An Optimistic Person. Ultimately I Believe In People. I Believe They Can Be Robust. When My Collection Delicate Edible Birds Came Out There Were One Or Two People Who Read The Title As Being A Commentary On The Characters Within The Pages, The Women In The Book, Meaning That They Were These Fragile Girls Meant For Male Consumption. But I Had Meant The Opposite - These People Are Tough. Dark Things Happen To Them But They Get On With Life As Best They Can.

Parenthood Means Becoming Comfortable With The Fact That There Are Things Outside Your Control, Things That End And Fail, Just As Most Utopias End And By Some Measure Fail. And Just Because They're A Failure Doesn't Mean There Isn't Value There.

My Childhood Was As Conventional As You Could Get.

I Can Say That If You're A Writer Who Happens To Be A Woman, You'll Get A Book Cover That Depicts A Woman With No Head, Or A Woman Turning Away, Or A Pair Of High Heels. You Have To Fight To Not Get Stuck With These Covers. In The U.s. Women Are Chick-lit Writers Unless They Prove Otherwise, And That's Frustrating.