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CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI: I think the way I approach expository writing, it's from a very personal angle. And I tell my students that it is the personal essay you are writing, often. And don't be afraid to allow your voice to come through, to allow your understanding of the world to come through. Even if it's not your own life you're writing about, it certainly can be in your own voice. It's your thinking process that's coming through, the way you think. And that has a voice of its own, so listen for that voice. There's an easy way-- let me rephrase this. I think there are some very clear possible ways of moving from personal writing to academic writing. And I want to clarify that for me, when I say academic writing, I don't necessarily mean technical and dry. I think the best academic writers are the ones who let us realize the importance of what they're writing about in human terms. Why should we be interested in the way in which, let's say, a building is designed if I see no connection between that and the rest of my life? So in my academic papers that I have my students write, I always have them try and come up with a thesis which is personally meaningful for them. And from that, that becomes a bridge, that thesis between a personal narrative style that they might have, and a more objective, argumentative paper. I think I do write for social action and the impact that I hope my stories will have on people certainly have a social purpose behind them. But I think one has to be very careful when one is doing that in literature. I think in expository writing, too, one has to be careful to achieve just the right tone so that you draw the reader in, and the reader feels along with you, and is not in a skeptic position against you. But particularly in stories and poetry, I think it's very important that you don't come across, first of all, as dogmatic, that you don't come across as a person with an agenda, that ultimately what is important for you is to create a work of art through which we learn more about human beings. Because through learning about human beings in a true way, we begin to care about human beings. And that caring is the first step towards social action. If we don't care, we'll never be able to affect any changes in society. And I think, when you write something, from the writer's point of view, it's a caring action. And you have to create it so that the reader can enter that work. And then from the reader's point of view, reading becomes a caring action.