I love smart commercial fiction. Susan Isaacs, for example and the readers who interest me are, in the preponderance, women. I am one of them; I like the books they like.
Beth Richardson GutcheonIf you're going to spend two or three years immersed in a subject, you better be deeply interested in it, or it won't be interesting to the reader.
Beth Richardson GutcheonHow quickly a person in pain whom you can't help becomes a reproach. And then, no doubt, a thorn.
Beth Richardson GutcheonI became a writer because I love to read, yet I never get to unless I'm reviewing a book or doing research.
Beth Richardson GutcheonI've found in the past that the more closely I identify with the heroine, the less completely she emerges as a person. So from the first novel I've been learning techniques to distance myself from the characters so that they are not me and I don't try to protect them in ways that aren't good for the story.
Beth Richardson Gutcheon