I hope my novels will allow you to become lost in a world totally unlike the actual world we live in. I work hard to make the words evoke particular images, thoughts, feelings, the mystery of relationships.

As a writer I am proud that if you took my last four books, and they didn't have my name on them, I don't think readers would know they were by the same author.

A novel, for me, relies on my imagination to inspire your (the reader's) imagination. It is not all there for you. My novels or my stories come to me visually. I use words to translate the novel I see inside my head into words that I hope will create a movie inside your head.

There is nothing wrong with a writer who has a distinct style in book after book, but I am not interested in repeating myself.

Writing a novel, I am making is an object that has a life and identity of its own, apart from me.

It was difficult to enjoy the trees and flowers when I was so aware of all that I had not yet done - pruning, weeding, transplanting, mulching, composting, tagging. When I was doing the work myself, I was happy, free.

A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That's how awful the loss is.