I don’t remember the first piece of Carina del Valle Schorske’s that I read, but I remember that I loved it, tweeted a quote and a link to it, and then we were following each other. We met up for dinner in San Juan in 2019, and ever since, I’ve been reading her essays with eagerness and excitement: Truly, no one else writes like her, and I’ve always found it fascinating how she retains her voice even when writing for big publications. We talked about that, her research process that she likens to “feeding the compost” of her mind, the material realities of the writing life, and language. This is a conversation that all writers will find a lot of inspiration in—I know I did!