I think that novels are one of the best means that we have to communicate both with the past and with the future.

It would have been a hard year if I'd spent it berating myself for not working on the book.

Maybe one of the reasons that I don't ever experience myself as having writer's block is I don't feel that I need to be producing every minute of every day.

[Michael] Chabon is arguing in favor of what is at the same time an old-fashioned and very forward-thinking opening up - of taking off the class associations with those labels, because we grew up, or I certainly grew up, feeling that, "Oh, there's literary fiction, and beneath that, there's these other things." He's actually saying that they're all of equal merit, and in many cases, that work in the genres, or work that draws from the genres is more entertaining for readers, since it is our job to entertain people.

The problems that other writers encounter are so fascinating to me as a writer and as a thinker about writing. I have found that many times, my students are experiencing problems that I myself have experienced in my work, but the solution is different because they're different people.

Tom, my husband, who converted to Judaism when we got married, and as a consequence, we were learning about historical conversions to Judaism. Really, every time it pops up, it's very strange.

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