Dorothy Allison, Trash: Stories

"Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama."

"Piece by piece, my mother is being stolen from me."

"I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my terrors and helplessness, to make it visible and real in a tangible way, in the way other people's seemed real -- the lives I had read about in books."

"Before I published any of my own stories, I read a great many stories by people as passionate about writing as I was, and I learned something from everyone I read -- something most important what I should not try to write."

"Why write stories? To join the conversation."

"I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft."