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

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.

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.

Feminism is still one of those taboo words, so hardly anybody talks about it. People usually go gender-neutral and say the book and film [Room] are about "the triumph of the human spirit.

Stories are a different kind of true.

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.

When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.