THE YEAR we lost Miss Mattie, there was an odd emptiness in the house. I was too young to understand as much about death as I do now but it seemed my older sisters did, especially Emma—she was closest to Miss Mattie and, despite her smiles, I knew she was sad. I didn’t like her being sad.
“Everything that happens in the universe has an impact on who I am, how I live, and what I write: thought, word, deed. Everything I think, I write, I speak has an impact on the world; like the...