Ten Questions

“I need to live life to make art.” —Jamila Minnicks, author of Moonrise Over New Jessup

“I can control what I write and how much of myself I put into the manuscript.” —Evette Dionne, author of Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul

 “Let your sense of language dawn of its own accord.” —Will Alexander, author of Divine Blue Light: For John Coltrane

“The most challenging thing, for me, was believing that it could be done.” —A. J. Bermudez, author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them

“The more you write, the more there will be to write about—so you’ve just gotta cut it off at some point!” —Franny Choi, author of The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

“Fixed ideas are always problematic when it comes to writing fiction.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Signal Fires

“Poetry is impossible, but it is not difficult.” —Olena Kalytiak Davis, author of Late Summer Ode

“It takes a lot of intentional work to write ethical stories.”  —Hafizah Augustus Geter, author of The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin

“A terrible draft of a story is a gift, because now the real work can begin.” —Jonathan Escoffery, author of If I Survive You

“These characters have been in my head for so long that they seem more real to me than some people.” —Lauren Acampora, author of The Hundred Waters

“If you can surprise a reader with a character’s reaction, a scene will almost always work.” —Megan Giddings, author of The Women Could Fly