On writing “First Year”by Laura Bramon Good. Finding blood on our basement apartment walls was like receiving solemn instruction to keep searching for meaning in the heartbreaking stories—our own and others—that haunted my husband Ben and me during our first year of marriage. The blood was just terrible: such a painful testimony to the life that the previous tenants had shared in the small, windowless space where Ben and I were trying desperately to reconcile and love each other.

On writing “Letter from a Japanese Crematorium”by Marie Mutsuki Mockett. Revealing something very personal without the filter of fiction was initially difficult for me. When I turned in an early draft of this essay, my agent asked for a rewrite.

I’m drawn to the mystery of what it is to be a self and how to dramatize that in language. Usually, I write lyric poetry. That is to say, I dramatize heightened states of consciousness in highly-patterned language and with a minimum of action and character development.

On writing “Cantata 147: The Final Chorale”by Amy Andrews.  The beds in my granny’s Kentucky farmhouse were covered with “old work quilts” my great-grandmother hand pieced from scraps. The “nice” quilts, patterned, like the Double Wedding Rings, were displayd on a quilt rack in the corner.

On writing “Community College” by Tim Bascom.  Creative nonfiction swerves toward introspection. I’m glad this essay focuses outward instead. It’s still a bit of a surprise, since I am inclined the other way.

On writing “Grasshopper”by Margaret Conway. I write nonfiction because I have no other choice. The characters who clamor inside my head refuse to be fictionalized or tethered to a conventional plot. My mother once said, “You’re a writer? Then write about me. I don’t even care if you say bad things about me—just let them know who I am before I croak.”

I can't imagine handing over this very personal confession to fiction.

I've been making my living as a writer since I was seventeen and now I'm forty-five. In that time I've never received so much response to a story as I have to this one. I'm not sure why that is.

As I write this in December 2008, change is everywhere.“Change” was the mantra of the recent presidential election, of course, the promise on which Barack Obama and Joe Biden based their campaign—and on which the McCain-Palin ticket opposed Obama.