Maybe I used to lean more toward the eccentric in my writing habits, partly because I held down a job and wrote in my off-hours and partly because I only wrote when I really felt like it. Being a working writer, obviously, acquaints one with the idea that writing is work; there’s less mystery to it than you might think. But it feels important to stay in touch with the part of you that thought there had to be weeping or empty bottles or skanky underclothing in order for inspired writing to take place.

AK: I particularly love the blurb for This Is Running for Your Life from Meghan Daum, that says “A sprawling, maximalist journey into the existential and cultural dramas of late twentieth-/early twenty-first-century North American life. Michelle Orange gives us the contents of her very interesting mind along with a healthy dose of her very good soul.” I bet that praise was rewarding.

MO: The blurb process is so disorienting, in this very vulnerable moment you have to make yourself even more vulnerable. But I must say when someone, especially someone you don’t know, gives you that kind of gift—it’s overwhelming. Suddenly you’d bear children for them if you could. Or cut their lawn a few times, at least.