I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away.

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

I've certainly faced some raw, real pain in my life. I lost my father to a car accident when I was young. My mother died ten years ago. My son was very sick as an infant. Eventually, I have attempted to transform this pain into art, to make meaning out of it.

I was doing a lot of yoga and learning to meditate, and I found that extremely helpful, and still do and hopefully always will.

The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.

It is only with distance that we are able to turn our powers of observation on ourselves, thus fashioning stories in which we are characters.

In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.