I'm not cut out to be a famous person; I can't do my hair and makeup well enough.

If you write thrillers or mysteries or horror fiction or quote-unquote speculative fiction, men might read you, and the 'Times' might notice you.

Maybe it stems from my newspaper-reporting days, but I took notes the whole time - getting the call, how I felt. As soon as I put pen to paper, it became a story [Hunger Heart], not something happening to me but something I was recording.

The condom broke. I know how stupid that sounds. It's the reproductive version of the dog ate my homework.

I have these "pinch me" moments when I realize I got to be the thing I wanted to be growing up. I'm right where I belong.

I wrote my first books when I was single and then I got married and then had a kid and there were different things happening in my life.

I sometimes read about authors who say they require a perfectly silent room maintained at precisely 68 degrees, with trash bags taped over the windows and a white-noise machine in the corner to write, and I think, 'Who are these people, and do any of them have kids?