I remember things like that...A lifetimes accredidation of unkindness, all of those little longering hurts that I carried around like stones sewn into my pockets.

Maybe it was inertia -or worse, fear- that was keeping me in the same place.

People say I'm not good at writing about men. My dad left when I was 16. Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can.

Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.

I was an English major in college, took a ton of creative writing courses, and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years.

There are a lot of women like me in the world, and we rarely get to see ourselves.

Do I want to spend my diminished working hours writing or answering email? Now I have somebody read through them. If someone has something really important to tell me I write back. Otherwise they get the auto reply.