"We only learn at the speed of pain, and we don't have others in our lives without forgiveness." — Bill Clegg

I'm rereading Jenny Offill's 'Dept. of Speculation.' I love it, and she's just a magician. Line by line and paragraph by paragraph, it's mesmerizing and so intricately plotted and so nimble.

Recovery is an ongoing project that is really discrete from everything else in my life. It allows me to be an agent, allows me to write, allows me to be married, allows me to be part of a family. The writing is not a support beam of recovery but a happy consequence of it.

I have no idea how people think of literary agents. Truthfully, I don't think they think of them very often.

Public speaking, for me, or speaking even in front of a handful of people is my greatest fear.