I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

I was first published in the newspaper put out by School of The Art Institute of Chicago, where I was a student. I wince to read that story nowadays, but I published it with an odd photo I'd found in a junk shop, and at least I still like the picture. I had a few things in the school paper, and then I got published in a small literary magazine. I hoped I would one day get published in The New Yorker, but I never allowed myself to actually believe it. Getting published is one of those things that feels just as good as you'd hoped it would.

Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.

I like listening to books as well, as that way you can iron at the same time.

The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely.

Because I've always been a fairly nervous person.

The good thing about England - like, if I were in France, all people would be doing is rubbing my nose in Donald Trump. As if I voted for him. Just rubbing my nose in him. And in England, they'd be rubbing my nose in it too, except for Brexit. So that means they can't rub my nose in anything!