You’re Not a Real Writer Until You Have Enemies: The Millions Interviews Karl Ove Knausgaard

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My editor always says to me: In life and in writing, take one step aside and everything looks differently. And humor is that step.
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Space for a Messy Meditation on Violence: The Millions Interviews Feroz Rather

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These moments tell us that violence pierces the terrain. It can desecrate the body, but the humanity of the subjugated is not completely lost.
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Complicate the Border: Octavio Solis Discusses ‘Retablos’

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This is what Solis means when he says we must learn to stand on the hyphen. He’s Mexican-American, which, in other words, means neither-nor.
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Motherhood Is Life-Shattering: The Millions Interviews Kirsten Lunstrum

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I write less than I might have if I hadn’t become a parent. That’s just the truth. But my fiction has deepened with the experience of raising other humans.
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Kathleen Kent and Laird Hunt on Witches and Wickedness in American History and Literature

When I asked my grandmother if Martha Carrier had truly been a witch, she told me, “There are no such things as witches, Sweetheart, just ferocious women.”

Noir Is All About Bad Decisions: The Millions Interviews William Boyle

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You have the dream of the thing, which turns out to be totally misguided, and then you have to deal with the blowback, which is very real.
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Facts That Turn Out to Be Fiction: Ann Cummins and Sarah Stone on Writing, Landscape, and Family

In regular life, I fall prey to lying—not intentionally, but I instinctively translate events into stories that give meaning to my experience.

Machines Made of Words and Making Trouble: The Millions Interviews Lacy M. Johnson

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I wrote The Reckonings to change how I understand the present. What is it about vengeance that allows it to continue to masquerade as justice?
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Stories Overlooked: The Millions Interviews Chaya Bhuvaneswar

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I am interested in this fluidity as a source of resilience. I'm drawn to characters who don't yet see the positive aspects of change, who deeply fear it.
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It’s Time We Started Stressing: The Millions Interviews Earl Swift

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We’ve got to come up with a rubric to figure out what do we save, what do we surrender to the sea? We have to be consistent.
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Eroded Tropes and Fears and Consequences: The Millions Interviews Alyson Hagy

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Compassion? If we cannot find it, we will see those who aren’t like us as “other,” as enemy. Literature—all art—is essential to human empathy.
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The New Periphery: Sergio De La Pava Discusses His Artistry and Sense of 21st-Century Fiction

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When something’s masterful, to me, it’s done. I often wonder: If I were insanely impressed by the majority of novels I’ve read, would I even write?
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What the World Demands of You: The Millions Interviews Margo Jefferson

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That’s theatrical, but that’s also psychological and factually accurate, this constant construction of different performing selves.
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Martin Riker Discusses Fatherhood, 19th-Century Literature, and the Beastie Boys

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My favorite writers read like they might easily live next door to you. You can borrow their lawnmowers, plus they write these wonderful, interesting things.
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The Business of Blowing Shit Up: David Shields on Trump, Media, and Being Prolific

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We all live symbolic lives. Trump’s base is a fan base; it’s fan fiction; through his bellicosity, they’re expressing by indirection their rage.
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Leah Dieterich Talks About Monogamy, iChats, and the Leap to Memoir

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I wanted to explore my actual life in these weird ways. I finally gave myself permission. I said, "I just want to write about my own life and that's OK."
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Books and Mortar: Eso Won Books in Los Angeles

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As water flows over rocks, so does knowledge flow through books. Books have knowledge and reading books gives you knowledge and power.
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Everything Matters, Nothing Matters: The Millions Interviews Daniel Torday

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I suspect art’s place will grow stronger the uglier civic and political life gets. Not “content.” Not “vertically integrated media.” FUCKING ART.
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