You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.

I guess I consider myself at times to have intuition.

There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.

When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.

Perhaps fiction has, for me, served a similar purpose--what is a narrative arc if not the imposition of order on disparate events?--and perhaps it is my avid reading that has been my faith all along.

Of course, I didn't imagine then that I could have had a real relationship with any guy. I thought that by virtue of being me I was disqualified.

The best part of being a writer for me is immersing myself in a fictional world, which is the opposite of being on social media. At the same time, if no one ever read my work, if I was writing solely for myself, I bet it would be lonely and a lot less fun.