I wrote because I thought I had nothing to say and writing gave me words, even to express silence.

I don’t know if writing would have become a vocation were it not for my father’s dying when I was twelve, which was like having the scenery collapse on set. I remember getting back on the school bus and picking up conversations as if nothing had happened because I wanted to reassure friends that I was okay. Writing was the opposite of conversation in this sense. It could acknowledge the rift. I didn’t write because I had something to say. I wrote because I thought I had nothing to say and writing gave me words, even to express silence.

SUSAN BARBA