How the Iowa Writers Workshop Shaped My Novel

I was with Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Harding. There were so many scenes that he and my classmates would say, you keep referring to this scene, why don't you just write it and let us see it? And so that's where the entire backstory came out of with this book. I also think that I got a little bit braver in writing dialogue exactly as it is said and heard. Style is a big thing that I think you learned in graduate school.