We Read To Find Life, In All

Maybe That, Really, Is As Good A Definition As Any Of An Artist In The World: A Ruthless Person.

Popular Success Is A Wonderful Gift If It Happens, But Like Money, It's Not The Motivation. The Effort To Create A Work Of Art That Is True And Potentially Lasting, That Is The Very Best Work Of Art You Can Create At That Point In Your Life - A Book That May Only Reach Or Move A Few People But Will Seem To People Somehow Transformative. That's The Ideal; That's Always The Motivation.

To My Mind, Guernica Is The Most Important Online Intellectual And Literary Journal In America Today.

I Always Thought I'd Get Farther. I'd Like To Blame The World For What I've Failed To Do, But The Failure - The Failure That Sometimes Washes Over Me As Anger, Makes Me So Angry I Could Spit - Is All Mine, In The End. What Made My Obstacles Insurmountable, What Consigned Me To Mediocrity, Is Me, Just Me. I Thought For So Long, Forever, That I Was Strong Enough -- Or I Misunderstood What Strength Was.

There Questions Of Wanting To Be An Artist, And What Does That Mean, What Makes You An Artist? Are You An Artist If You're In A Gallery In New York And Not An Artist If You're Doing It At Home? Do You Need Legitimation To Count? If You've Been Acculturated To Believe That You Have Certain Obligations - Familial, Social, Human - If Multitasking Has Been Your Forte And That's What's Been Praised And Rewarded, Where Do You Find The Single-mindedness, The Selfishness To Do Something Like Art? I Think Those Are Questions That Arise Differently For Women And For Men.