Susan Straight

“I love election day, and I love to vote.”

“I have more than 100 legal pads filled with handwriting. Eight novels, two books for children, countless stories and essays.”

“It's always fun to talk about a novel.”

“My brother acquired his first gun when he was very young, from a recently-fled drug dealer's residence. Now, he lived in a rural orange-grove area, and he shot at coyotes who killed his animals and at drug runners who used the groves for transport. Sometimes he joked that he only shot what moved.”

“More than half of my former students teach - elementary and high school, community college and university. I taught them to be passionate about literature and writing, and to attempt to translate that passion to their own students. They are rookie teachers, most likely to be laid off and not rehired, even though they are passionate.”

“For someone like me who's lived in the same place her whole life - I mean, I lived three blocks from where I was born, and I met my future husband in the eighth grade - there are always family stories and legends passed down.”

“I love seeing America vote, through the prism of my older working class neighborhood in Riverside, California.”