"One cannot expect to be a writer without being a reader!…I often draw from contemporary works, but I remind my students that radical progression does not only mean looking for the newest thing: it also comes from a reinvigorated understanding of how works that have come before us -- including the classics -- can instruct us in new ways. I like to remind my students too that we may be heir to certain cultural histories and traditions, ways of doing things with language -- but that there are other global traditions of literature and we have really only just skimmed the surface in our understanding of these riches. (2014)"