Discourse about motherhood is chillingly narrow-minded. It's a tool the patriarchy uses, of course. So people complain about their kids or they complain about the pain of birth or they make motherhood kitschy, Mother's Day-y.

I am surprisingly optimistic, though lately that's been hard to maintain. Art and slow, small, close gestures help remind me of my optimism.

I think I write mostly about death and so it is interesting to hear how often people think I'm writing about pregnancy and birth. Though of course they are two sides of the same coin. Both when I was pregnant and now as a mother, I am consumed with thoughts of death. This is a strange role in parenting. The death guardian.

There's a voice when I write. I speak everything aloud. My family is so accustomed to me talking to myself that often times they don't answer me when I am trying to speak to one of them.

I became a writer because I am the youngest of six children. I listen I observe. I'm camouflaged as a moth. Mothers are unseen. It helps me write.

I am a toggler. I always have three or four projects going, short stories alongside novels and essays. When one project is terrible, there's somewhere else hopeful to look.

My father thought a novel was a broken short story. There's something to that. Many of my favorite novels are novellas. The authors of brief things must reckon with the precision of language.

The lion's share of my work is revision, 85%? I revise forever, combing over lines, listening and listening to them in different hours and moods so that I feel they are finally right for me.

I live with deer and coyotes. Lyme ticks are a daily concern and mystery, but, yes, what do they mean? I don't know yet. But I'd rather point out the abundance of mystery than pretend to solve it. As if I could solve it! What does a deer mean? Who knows? Everything!

When I was learning to write I was surrounded by poets Brian Blanchfield and Annie Guthrie were always with me as I was learning. I'm so grateful for the poets in my life. Because of them I always knew the importance of each word, line.

In writing I found a way to make silence and to be silent. The short story has a lot more silence than the novel and that is its success.