I started listening to the Cure around the time I discovered Joy Division and, like Joy Division, they have shaped my taste in all sorts of dark and dreary ways.

Don't stay in a bad situation - whether it is a relationship or a job - out of fear of failure. It's not a failure to walk away and choose to be happy. It takes a lot of courage.

One is but a shade of the other.

Finding one's voice - or creating a narrative voice that has the power to carry your story - is the hardest part.

Even the good angels, I think, would inspire in humans some sort of fear.

I taught myself to write in order to understand who I was and so yes, writing was an act of self-actualization in the beginning.

As a girl, I used to zip myself into a snowsuit, fall into the deepest snowdrift I could find and sweep my arms and legs into the powder, making snow angels that would crumble within minutes of their genesis. Despite their rapid disappearance, something about these frozen, evanescent angels has stayed with me ever since.