“Workshop is productive in insisting that you look at your flaws and hold your work to a high standard, but I think it serves its purpose and then you have to move on.”

“I learned not to look away at the moment when I should be paying the most attention. The closer I got to the heart of a scene, to the really difficult material to write, the emotionally challenging stuff or the exchange in which the conflict is made most explicit, the more I’d look for a way out of writing it. This was out of fear, obviously, because you don’t want to run up against your limitations in craft, intelligence or heart. It’s much easier to duck the really vital material, but it kills what you’re writing to do so, kills it instantly.”

“A conversation that dwells only in what hasn’t been accomplished and doesn’t try to see what is fighting toward the surface for breath is an impoverished conversation indeed.”

–Matthew Thomas, NY times Sunday Book Review, September 6, 2014