Women writers are often conflated with their narrators - as if we can't consciously construct fictional worlds from the ground up and can only write diary entries.

I think this is how life is. It's not a linear march through time; you revolve around the same old things as you age and acquire experiences.

Long before I started to write in earnest, Lorrie Moore taught me you could have a woman narrator who was funny and complex and even wrongheaded. She opened up a lot of space that me and a million other women rushed into.

As a young artist working in multiple mediums, the work and especially the writings of artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy were very important to me.

I have female friends who work in all different mediums who I speak to at least once a week. It helps me so much to know that I'm not alone. I think that's the bare minimum you need to sustain yourself - some sort of context of other women making things.