It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.

There's something about urban life - you walk out your door, and you're in a steady of stream of life happening around you, and it's very easy to get caught up in that stream and simply kind of keep on moving.

Strange - I'm not much of a film person. I love watching films, but they don't stay with me the way books do. Stranger still, because my husband is a screenwriter!

It's easier in an urban world to cast the blame outward. So I've learned a lot about my own process in that way.

Maggie Shipstead takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go. Astonish Me is a haunting, powerful novel.

You have to believe in yourself before the world has given you any indication that you should believe in yourself as a writer.

Those memories that are engraved within me become teaching tools, ways of connecting with others, of creating an empathic bridge, of reaching out a hand and saying, I've been there, too.