With thanks to Amy Wang for this interview in the Oregonian.
Q: What inspired you to write a memoir?
A: This memoir began when my mother died in 1995 and I wanted my daughter to know her grandma, who I thought was an incredible member of our family. It was just going to be a history. And then I started writing and met real writers and then I met poets and then I met a lot of political activists and the book just kept changing and changing until it became what it is now. It’s still for my daughter, but it’s also – I wanted it to become eventually a piece of art.