I think about some of the novels I love - The Stranger, Disgrace, Quicksand and Passing, Giovanni's Room, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I think I'm more intrigued by characters who don't do the right thing and where we are allowed to identify with their shame/dishonesty/envy... whatever.

My fear was like a stray dog, roving the neighborhood of my life, looking for a new source of worry.

I didn't read about it for school. It was just for myself. I was interested in cults in general but Jonestown was the most interesting of all the cults I studied.

Motherhood. It was hard to get lost in anything else completely when children were 3 years old.

I don't like stories that are too neat and too resolved. I think resolutions can be deadening for the reader.

I find myself speaking through the other characters, putting ideas in their voices and heads. Writing almost becomes a splitting of myself into multiple personalities. But I don't write to make an argument on behalf of any of the characters, or to prove anything about a character. I think that's important that I be serving the story first and not my own point of view.

I'm increasingly less interested in classic storylines and that arc that we have come to expect.