Identity issues are hardwired into the way I think about character - it's almost as if I can't get away from them even if I want to.

It is not like a premonition of death. It is as if she died a long time ago, and she just now remembered it.

I was worried that, as a college teacher, if I wrote too much about intergenerational sex my students would be creeped out.

I think that the way that I write stories is by instinct. You have some basic ideas - a character, or an image, or a situation that sounds compelling - and then you just feel your way around until you find the edges of your story. It's like going into a dark room... you stumble around until you find the walls and then inch your way to the light switch.

I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then I had this really extraordinary, different life than my parents.

I've always been a horror movie fan, since I was a kid. And I was also a really scared kid. I was easily scared of the dark. One of the ways I would try and get away from my fear of the dark was to pretend like the monsters were my friends.

For me, the process of writing a novel happens mostly in your head before you actually start writing.