I am glad it's [California novel] resonated with people because, for me, most apocalyptic novels aren't scary, because they feel so very far off.

I suppose that it's my impulse to mine, as a writer, these scary parts of ourselves and the world.

The messiness [in my books] is nothing like an Atwood novel. For me, the deeper subjects are secrets versus intimacy, and how both beget safety but also threaten it. And there is a lot for me about loss, too.

I am glad it's [California novel] resonated with people because, for me, most apocalyptic novels aren't scary, because they feel so very far off.

With my students, I don't offer any simple tips like that, maybe because my own process is pretty messy, but when we workshop we talk a lot about the deeper subject, which is what the story or novel is about. I think defining a narrative's themes can lay bare a narrative's tensions.

I was interested in writing about gender in this future world where progress has not only halted but turned backward. On another note, sometimes the personal is not so politically correct, and what we are turned on by can't be made to behave.

Oh my goodness, I hate camping. I am like Frida times 1,000. I have always been attracted to wilderness stories, à la the movie Badlands, when Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen are in the woods on the lam - maybe because it scares me a little.