“A good writer should never let a good catastrophe go to waste.”

From Stop Making Sense, or How to Write in the Age of Trump – Aleksander Hemon – The Village Voice – 1/17/17

“There is no choice, in other words, other than owning a split mind that would probe and test America, all of its parts, all of its lies, all of us. ‘Reality’ has finally earned its quotation marks. This is a consequence of an unimaginable catastrophe, to be sure, but a good writer should never let a good catastrophe go to waste. The necessary thing to do is to transform shock into a high alertness that prevents anything from being taken for granted — to confront fear and to love the way it makes everything appear strange.”