I love it when people ask if Jennifer Weiner is a pen name. Um, if I wanted a pen name I could have done a LOT better than this!

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.

When an older writer tries to tell a younger writer through a review what kind of career she should be pursuing, it tends to speak to the reviewer's anxieties rather than the book itself.

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.

When you get everything you wanted, I think maybe you do have to be a little grateful for the people who got you there... whether or not they thought they were doing you any favors at the time.

If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer?

People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world...But you have to do what's right for you.