I’ve been teaching creative writing for many years. And teaching writing is a weird thing, because it’s not just about helping students master a subject. It’s really about helping them discover what stories they’re meant to tell, how best to tell those stories, and how to overcome the inhibitions that inevitably arise when we seize the mantle of na... See more

"I have learned that whenever I think "I don't have enough time to do that" what I usually mean is "I don't have enough energy" or "I am not actually interested in doing this."

What I need to do a better job of is not managing my time, but rather caring for myself and identifying my true interests. When I am well rested and working on something I a... See more

Transitions, down moments, and rest have never been my strengths. I think if I had been more forgiving and attentive to what’s quietest, I might have been less reckless with myself and others when I was young.

There’s also something to be said about collating and curating in the slow writing process—facts, knowledge, smells, descriptions, stories, passport stamps, headlines—until the collection becomes part of the transformation process. Through acute and critical attention, away from the drive of production, toward the singularity of studying a branch, ... See more

“I think the reason there’s such good juicy kitchen gossip, and so much connection happens in the kitchen, is because you are usually kind of doing something repetitive, and that releases something in your mind that creates a space that doesn’t just reside in the brain, but also is something that becomes part of the body. And how often do we do tha... See more

Your job is not to lock the doors and chisel at yourself like a marble statue in the darkness until you feel quantifiably worthy of the world outside. Your job, really, is to find people who love you for reasons you hardly understand, and to love them back, and to try as hard as you can to make it all easier for each other.

My sense is that what’s at stake here is really rethinking the human as a site of interdependency. And I think, you know, when you walk into the coffee shop ... and you ask for the coffee, or you, indeed, even ask for assistance with the coffee, you’re basically posing the question, do we or do we not live in a world in which we assist each other? ... See more

To be a good delegator, first you have to be a systems thinker . Systems thinking consists of understanding how events, behaviors, tasks, problems etc. relate and how they can prevail and sustain over time.