“I tend not to write with overarching whys…I don’t have any special messages in mind. Writing, to me, is less akin to actions as willful as inventing and deciding than it is to discovery, a slow revelation in which I am more like a conduit. I sometimes think I’m a witness, rather than a person who makes. I don’t write to provide answers, I say. I quote Cortázar, whom I love:
I’ve remained on the side of the questions.
- R. O. Kwan, from “On Being a Woman in America,” in the Paris Review
Talisman (dream siege), 2018. A conduit….to what, or whom? Does knowing the answers close the door? Should I remain on the side of the questions?