If I gave up writing, I'd have to find an equally obsessive way to fill my time. Yarn-bombing skyscrapers or making houses out of empty soda bottles.

Canadians are fond of darker stories, serious stories, so if you're a Mystery writer or a Romance writer or Fantasy Writer, you will most likely have an American publisher and agent.

I think we're in a 1970s-level moment of social transition and they're always full of upheaval. As violent and deranged as we can be to each other and to other species, we've got nothing on tsunamis, hurricanes or tornadoes.

The critiques I received from my father's community didn't actually have to do with any of the things I'd been afraid of - spiritual or cultural aspects - they were more annoyed that I'd killed off this character or those characters hadn't hooked up or I'd done an open ending and it didn't give them a sense of closure that they were expecting.

I find myself moved by social justice issues. I'm not sure where that will lead me. I'm willing to nurture it.

I miss smoking (two to four packs a day) but I don't miss the crackle in my lungs when I breathed.

Our ability to factory farm animals is coldly psychopathic.