WRITERS ASK  ISSUE 67 EXCERPTS

I try to give myself license to do that, to steep myself in the research and cast around for the best information I can get, and then, when it comes down to it, if a sentence requires that the thing be yellow instead of green—even though the thing is green in real life—then I'll go with yellow. If that's what the story needs.—Nam Le, interviewed by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais

Also, since this is application season and as I'm reading through hundreds of applicant writing samples for the MFA here at the University of Massachusetts, I'm constantly being made aware that having something to say really does count, much as pretty sentences make the whole go down easier.—Sabina Murray, interviewed by Leslie McGrath

Whether it's the truth or not, it has the possibility to provide an explanation. One of the consolations of fiction is that it provides explanations for things we don't understand in life, in our own lives, and in the world around us.—Peter Ho Davies

Sometimes people think the Cultural Revolution is gone, it's the past, and we don't have to talk about it. But we do, it comes back. History always repeats. I really worry when people say it doesn't matter anymore. It does.—Yiyun Li