“I reread constantly for inspiration. Seek: Reports From the Edges of America and Beyond by Denis Johnson stokes my curiosity. Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water reminds me to own my fierceness, to conjure it onto the page. I also look for synchronicities and act on them in my writing and in my life.
The car radio becomes an oracle: What is this song asking me to write today? I consult my astrological chart or notebooks I organize according to particular themes such as loss, terrorism, and archetypes, among others. One notebook is entirely comprised of dialogues I have with different parts of myself. The more I poke and prod the material I’m working on with creative ideas, the more sparks shoot up.”
—Wendy C. Ortiz, author of Excavation: A Memoir (Future Tense Books, 2014) and Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2014)