It took me about three years to write About Grace. I wasn't teaching two of those years, so I was working eight-hour days, five days a week. And it would include research and reading - it wasn't just a blank page, laying down words.

So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?

For me, writing historical fiction is all about finding a balance between reading, traveling, looking, imagining, and dreaming.

Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.

A real diamond is never perfect.

I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on.

In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes present, and future hurries into history.