Autobiography, The Starting Poing

The [role of autobiography is] a starting point, much in the way that physical details are a starting point for writing about meaning and time and dimension. The reader should think that whatever you write is autobiographical, because they should be convinced intensely of the reality of the piece. They should feel that it comes from somewhere very deep in the writer. But the minute you work in language or fiction, there's a translation that occurs-like the translation from one language to another, from book to film, thought to speech. Life and art are such different forms of being. One fears death; the other subverts it.

The Writer's Chronicle, May/Summer 2002
An Interview with Jayne Anne Phillips by Sarah Anne Johnson