When I read, if I don’t know where a story is set, I always feel unmoored. The same is true for my writing: Until I place my story in a specific plac… - Kirstin Valdez Quade

I do think one of the reasons I’m a writer is that we moved around so much when I was a child, and I was always the new kid. I was always in a new environment and trying to figure it out. I was always watching, trying to suss out what the social situation was, and where I might fit in, and who I was in this new place. We’re different people in different contexts; different aspects of our identities become more pertinent…

It has absolutely been romanticized; it shows up in literature and art. I think there is a sort of magic to it that draws people and yet I think the reality of it is that it's an extraordinarily complicated place.

I love the short story: I love its flexibility, its distillation of language, the pressure it exerts on the moment. A story demands that the reader look closely. And yet, despite the intensity and constraints, a story can be surprisingly capacious…