““After college she worked in the theater and started publishing her stories. She still plays the piano, and in a way that is similar to Mark Strand’s strategy of driving a car or running errands when the focus on his work becomes excessively absorbing, she uses music to help clear her mind and get back in touch with experiences beyond the compass of rationality: Playing the piano is for me a way of getting unstuck. If I’m stuck in life or in what I’m writing, if I can I sit down and play the piano. What it does is break the barrier that comes between the conscious and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind wants to take over and refuses to let the subconscious mind work, the intuition. So if I can play the piano, that will break the block, and my intuition will be free to give things up to my mind, my intellect. So it’s not just a hobby. It’s a joy.””
