“Writing 'Native Guard,' I didn't know I was working on a single book. ...” — Natasha Trethewey Quote

Writing 'Native Guard,' I didn't know I was working on a single book. I began writing that book because I was interested in the lesser-known history of these black soldiers stationed off the coast of my hometown.

I was always very aware of the nature of the place where I was growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi, how that place was shaping my experience of the world. I had to go to the Northeast for graduate school because I felt like I had to get far away from my South, be outside it, to understand it.

I think often people don't realize the great diversity of Southern writing because in their minds, if you're not from the South, it can seem regional and small, and of course that's not the case at all when you start to read the work.

Often it seems that there are writers who are their best selves on the page. That Seamus Heaney was as genuine and deeply admirable in person as in his poems was to me a gift, then as now.

Once you get to know me, you would know in a second that I am an East Coast girl. You can tell because I'm not flaky, and I will tell you how it is. I also walk faster than they walk in L.A.

The audience loves us! They buy out all our shows and really enjoy themselves but the press keeps right on bombin' us. We thought at first it was because our music was too Texan, maybe too different for East coast people to relate to. But anyone can relate to bein' drunk or missin' your woman.

I went to college in Vermont, and then stayed in the East Coast.

Fix a few things here, improve a few things there, launch a new feature every so often. That's coasting. And I don't want Basecamp to coast.