Elissa Washuta & Alice Bolin in conversation for Tin House

I’m thinking again of that idea of the book as the site of experience. In the book that’s the only place where I’m able to have that experience, or that’s the place where I’m freest to have the experience of telling someone about my fear and my pain. That’s not a real-life experience I have that often. The book is a site of freedom where, at least in drafting and revising, I’m not constrained by anybody else.