The long sight lines, that long shoot of the eye to a distant horizon for some reason frees thoughts and images for me more than anywhere else. I love northern New England, but the trees get in the way of thinking for me. In a way she is like one of her own headstrong characters, forging ahead and doing things her own way. Proulx, who published her first book Heart Songs when she was in her fifties, does not believe in writing or living to someone else's agenda. Readers often ask me why don't you write about women, implying that if you are a woman, that's all you can write about.
Writers can write about anything they want, any sex they want, any place they want.
The worst piece of advice given to young writers is to write about what you know. Use your imagination. That's all writers have got. In a very awful way, this demand that you write about your own experience is to ask you to smother what's genuinely interesting about you your mind and how it works. What makes the writer interesting makes the readers interesting, too.