“When I get stuck, I walk to the cemetery and sit by the grave of Polexenia Velicu, on the seat where I wrote my first chapters of The Great Inland Sea. Or I lie in the grass beneath the cypress tree with Grandma Caroline Hidden, as if I’m a sole surviving relative. I dream around my story, meditate on characters, wait. If I get nothing, I move to the headstones of others I’ve adopted, Mabel Silent or Bessie Slaughter.… Annie Dillard said writing a book is like sitting up with a dying friend: You ‘hold its hand and hope it gets better.’ For me, I visit the already dead with pencil in hand. I feel the earth and get humble, hope that words might come.”
—David Francis, author of Stray Dog Winter (MacAdam/Cage, 2008)