I tend to think of writing as a more collaborative project than I think some people do.

If I don't write every day for one week or even, frankly, one year, I don't really think too much about that.

I think that we're all always just working on finding how that balance functions for us, given today's circumstances.

Teaching is enormously satisfying because I'm constantly learning more. Just constantly being exposed to new voices and new life experiences and new worldviews and new structural dilemmas and new characters - it's really exciting for me.

One of the things that's exciting for me about this novel is that, to me, Brookland and The Testament of Yves Gundron were both, in certain regards, crypto-steampunk. They're both books that are interested in an alternate technological past that in fact didn't historically come to pass. If you were to ask me what my novels were about, I would say, well, these are novels about technology and how we relate to technology and what technology means.

A good book is a good book, and there are a lot of different ways to approach writing or reading one.

Trying to talk through and figure out new answers really helps me figure out more about what I'm doing - and what we're all doing.