Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do.

A lot of my upbringing was about denying or fretting or evading.

I would not send a first story anywhere. I would give myself time to write a number of stories.

A writer has to true to him or herself. Period. That’s it!

I approach writing stories as a recorder. I think of my role as some kind of reporting device - recording and projecting.

We are all #humans and we all make #mistakes. We #hurt people even if we don't want to.

There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding.