I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.

Goodbye, Room." I wave up at Skylight. "Say goodbye," I tell Ma. "Goodbye, Room." Ma says it but on mute. I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.

So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.

I say "on principle" [regarding 'lesbian writer'] because whenever you get one of your minority labels applied, like "Irish Writer," "Canadian Writer," "Woman Writer," "Lesbian Writer" - any of those categories - you always slightly wince because you're afraid that people will think that means you're only going to write about Canada or Ireland, you know.

A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.

I wrote the novel [Room], and then I thought, "This could work on film, and I want to be the one to do it." So I went ahead and drafted it.

I actually tried to think of the story [Room] in gender-neutral terms at first and said to myself, "OK, would this work if it were a man?" Well no, you can't make a man pregnant, so it's got to be a woman.