Getting an audience requires luck as well as talent. Some artists are private and shy. It costs them too much.

I am, it seems, interested in people with multiple identities. I think we all have multiple identities.

There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels.

My teaching forces me to articulate what I think works in a piece of fiction and how I think it works. All of that gives me energy as a writer.

The writer has to be brave, I think.

I like to buy books for the kids in my family. I guess that's why they call me the 'mean' aunt.

Tell me it's forbidden, unthinkable, and that's where I want to go. Because the chances are it's complicated, and the complications are meaningful.