Mostly what ends up inspiring me and affecting my work are books by authors that I love.

Men might be chastised for being promiscuous, but I think they're more likely to be given a pass, due to a "men will be men" attitude that still prevails in the Western world. They don't usually experience anything like the virulent shaming and verbal abuse that women who are sexually adventurous are sometimes prone to experiencing.

So much of what determines our happiness, I believe, is who we choose as our intimates.

The effects of fame on the not-famous people who are close to a celebrity - this is definitely a topic that continues to interest me.

Unless I'm writing trying to write about a historical figure, I don't really set out to read or research with a specific topic in mind.

Sometimes I do work on a longer manuscript in tandem with one or two shorter pieces - whether it's a short story or an essay (though I don't write many of the latter).

Tangentially, Americans, despite many of us being prone to sometimes-eyebrow-raising disclosures about our private lives on social media, still retain what I think of as reactionary views about sexuality and intimacy.