Most written work is a conversation between the editor and the writer, that the writer essentially fulfills in public, and the editor provides the stage for that to happen as well as the prompts.

Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible.

I realized that my identity as a novelist was private. Only I knew how much of a novelist I was!

I've been told it's hard to write about singing. I didn't realize that going into it. I might not have tried if I knew!

As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

Whenever people say a coincidence in a novel is implausible, I think, Do I have a story for you.

The way some were entrapped into lives of prostitution, the way that something like marriage could rob them of their rights.