Love Is Art, Not Truth. It’s Like

If You Look At Most Womens Writing, Women Writers Will Describe Women Differently From The Way Male Writers Describe Women. The Details That Go Into A Woman Writers Description Of A Female Character Are, Perhaps, A Little More Judgmental. Theyre Looking For Certain Things, Because They Know What Women Do To Look A Certain Way.

But I Believed In Starting Over. There Was Finally, I Knew, Only Rupture And Hurt And Falling Short Between All Persons, But, Shirley, The Best Revenge Was To Turn Your Life Into A Small Gathering Of Miracles. If I Could Not Be Anchored And Profound, I Would Try, At Least, To Be Kind.

Later I Would Come To Believe That Erotic Ties Were All A Spell, A Temporary Psychosis, Even A Kind Of Violence, Or At Least They Coexisted With These States.

If Prose Can Cast A Spell, We Will Listen To It No Matter What It's Saying. If A Narrative Uses Language In A Magical And Enlivening Way, We Will Listen To The Story. But If The Language Doesn't Cast A Spell, We Will Listen To It Only If It Is Telling Us Something That Actually Happened.

The Only Really Good Piece Of Advice I Have For My Students Is, 'write Something You'd Never Show Your Mother Or Father. And You Know What They Say? I Could Never Do That!'