My first two novels were set in the past, and that freed me up in a lot of ways; it allowed me to find my way into my story and my characters through research.

People might seem to have a perfectly fine life but inside, we don't even know if they've suffered.

I feel like if writers used writing as therapy we'd have a ton of happy writers.

As writers, we don't just need to write about poverty or war or the immigrant experience.

The process of open adoption is not discussed in the way it should be. Everyone I know who has adopted domestically has at least one tragic story. It was important to me to be able to describe those situations.

I wanted a baby of color, to be honest, because I wasn't attached to the idea that I look like the biological mother. I liked the idea of the adoption being clear; it was and is not something I am interested in hiding.

Idea of the generations continuing is really important. And that's interesting to me. I write about families; I'm interested in families. Even though I think a family can be just two people or two people and a dog, I really wanted children for that reason.