Your essay collection "Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System" is in stores on March 1. How did you get the idea to write this collection?

I have been living with chronic pain for 7 years, and I initially wrote scraps of essays as a way to cope and then to explore my experiences. Ultimately I found myself trying to write pain in ways that were as strange as possible as a way to break out of the monotony of pain itself. I might also have written this as a way to hollow out some living space for myself inside pain and to see if others with pain had experienced something similar.

You teach at Fairfield University, which has a really beautiful library and Fairfield in general is a pretty great town. Where's a place in Fairfield people should check out?

I loooove Las Vetas, a coffeeshop on Unquowa Street at the center of town. Cool vibe and great place to hang out!

What can people expect from your reading?

I will read something about pain that is waaaayyy out-there and a little bit sci-fi.