I've always had a clear sense that time is short and we need to live as fully as we can in every moment.

A haunting, harrowing punch to the heart, Among the Missing is flat-out brilliant. About the secrets we keep, the lives we are desperate to live, and the chances we miss, it's a psychological dazzler. Truly, one of my favorite books of this year-or any year.

I always think that in a big city, anything is possible, including reinventing yourself.

Open adoption, when it works, is fabulous. But when it goes wrong, it's so traumatizing for everybody.

I write about the things that haunt or obsess me.

There have been years where I've had to take a real job and I wrote during slow times and lunches. I think never forgetting how lucky I am to be able to do something I love has really fueled me.

I just love that feeling of being in another world, of creating characters and watching where they go.