Fourteen Hills couldn’t resist a front row seat to LitQuake’s discussion between Michelle Tea and Susan Straight   (featured inFourteen Hills 18.1) in Z Space’s auditorium on October 11^th, 2012. Tea, a memoirist, and Straight, anovelist, sat down to discuss the writing process, fiction, and how and why they write cross-racially. The lucky attendees were invited to listen in on what felt like a cozy but crackling fireside chat. Tea directed, immediately inquiring about Straight’s experience under the tutelage of James Baldwin. Straight emphasized the importance of periphery characters that Baldwin taught her are “the key to the story.”