I want a reader to feel that there is room for them

My effort, I think, as a writer for all of my adult life is, I have no interest in being the writer or the reader’s authority about anything. I hope, in nonfiction, to write in an authoritative way and to earn the trust and respect of a reader. But mostly what I’m interested in is being the reader’s companion. I want a reader to feel that there is room for them – for their intellect and for their imagination – in the prose that I try to craft on a page.

BARRY LOPEZ