Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.

I think about Old Nick carrying me into the truck, I'm dizzy like I'm going to fall down. "Scared is what you're feeling," says Ma, "but brave is what you're doing." "Huh?" "Scaredybrave." "Scave." Word sandwiches always make her laugh but I wasn't being funny.

In the publishing world, most editors are probably women. So I don't see the publishing world as a male-dominated one, especially within fiction.

Actually,the nightmarish thought occurred to me that with electronic delivery of books becoming a norm, soon writers may be expected to provide several versions of their book, ranging from the Easy to the Complex, and buyers will choose what they're in the mood for with the click of a button! I do hope not.

The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.

I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.

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