ZZ Packer Quotes

• Be wary of feeling as through there is not enough room at the table. Oftentimes a female Chinese-American might feel as through she is in competition with another Chinese-American woman writer of the same generation. A writer friend of mine calls it the "There Can Only Be One ..." syndrome. This isn't "Survivor." The more good writers, of all walks of life and all ethnicities and persuasions, the better.

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• Well, as a short-story writer, I don't think there are any weaknesses to the genre itself. I guess I would say that the difficulty of the form is that one must create an entire world in five to 30 pages, as opposed to 300. There is very little room for fat - you must be economical. And you must begin as close to the end as you possibly can.

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• The big issue was cutting. I finally cut as much as I could, about a fourth of the story, and actually liked it.

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• I think when we engage in language we are engaging in something that is specifically and primally human.

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