My relationship with my parents is among the greatest gifts of my life.

I think that's actually what draws me to family stories: the various roles we each play with each member of our families, and how different they can be from who we are with our friends and partners and lovers. I'm endlessly fascinated by how we navigate these family dynamics; they are the dramas each of us live out day after day, often in ways we don't even realize.

Italians in particular are seen as either benign and child-like (the sweet old nonna with her meatballs), menacing mobsters, or hyper-sexualized housewives and gigolos; the kind of nourishment I'm looking for doesn't lie in any of these stereotypes.

I wrote in the mornings, often in cafes, on the way to the office. I gave myself a daily word minimum, usually 750. I tried to save revision for the weekends, when I had more consecutive hours to string together.

I realized that you have to deal with a lot of baggage when you write about your own era, that it's harder to separate what is actually compelling from what is interesting simply because it mattered to you at the time.

Deeply affecting and compulsively readable, The Fifty-First State displays Lisa Borders' emotional acuity, first-rate skills as a storyteller, and profound empathy not only for her two compelling main characters but for an oft-neglected region and a disappearing way of life.

I haven't hit the bestseller list, but I consider myself one of the luckiest writers in the world, and this is mainly because of Grub Street.