Maggie Smith — "You're a human before you're an artist."

Pico Iyer — "Words are only as rich as the silence that underlies them."

Caleb Femi — "Poetry never leaves you."

Gloria Noto — "Awareness is a reflection."

Ayşegül Savaş — "We're always in the midst of it."

Lauren Elkin — "To me, it's all interesting."

Rachel Schwartzmann — "Was it a beginning, or had the story been writing itself all along?"

Amy Lin — "Grief is a problem of narrative."

Claudia Dey and Heidi Sopinka — "We're very conscious of that aliveness in our relationship."

Victoria Chang — "It takes a lot of energy to be slow."

Brandon Stosuy and Rose Lazar — "Crying is a cool thing."

Mason Spector — "I find a lot of value in the sadness."

Chelsea Hodson — ”I’m genuinely excited about creating things.”

Katherine May — ”It’s okay to get on with the business of living.”

Tembe Denton-Hurst — ”Growing isn’t always in the big moments.”

Allie Rowbottom — ”The questions in your writing are the questions in your life.”

Ross Gay — ”There’s always a gathering inside of us.”

Tarajia Morrell — ”We imagine our future, our family, ourselves.”

Ella Frances Sanders — ”People ask questions differently, and they also answer questions differently.”

Naj Austin — ”What does it mean to put ourselves on a platform that requires less of us?”