“When friends come over, I tell them the house shakes because it’s on a fault line. I don’t tell them the house is upset. I don’t tell them the trees tap the windows at night and the wind only blows at dinner time and the floor tilts upstairs, so Sis and I have to lean against the wall to get to our rooms. I don’t tell them Mom and Dad walk with their hands out like acrobats to get to their room.”

“When I open the door, I face the drooping sun. The light in my face is bright, not warm.”

“One spring, the tree—their oak tree—developed a strange rash.”

“Military folks the world over will tell you theirs is not a business of violence…That’s a lie.”

The Cave of the Seven Sleepers is a medieval legend, shared within Christian and Muslim circles.

“This is the Delta, where you can look and look but find no visible demarcation line between the salt waters and the fresh waters.”

On how writing can help to heal, or at least cope.

“Maybe the work I did, mulling over the show and creating order out of chaos, imagining character beats and plotlines that would make better use of the cast and ring truer to established stakes, forced the show and its characters into my soul.”

“She made me sit next to her, arms shaved thoroughly, her skin covered in razor burns. ‘We’ll get another one.’”