The Roman Catholic Church and its rituals were so much part of life that, although my parents would often question a small matter of dogma and none of us seemed more religious than anyone else, no one ever questioned the rituals or the basic tenets of belief.

John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.

The old Victorian laws against homosexuality were still on the statute books until the early 1990s. As a gay man living in Ireland, I and people like me found it easy to feel less than citizens.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.