I've always been a writer who tackles complex themes and risky subjects - I write about the things that people think but never say aloud.

I've always been a writer who tackles complex themes and risky subjects - I write about the things that people think but never say aloud.

My novels are never truly finished, even if they're published and sitting on the shelf. While I may no longer be interested in spending time with that particular set of characters, I can't help but think about all the ways the book could be different, the small, insignificant tweaks that no one but me would ever notice.

As a writer who happens to be a woman, I am constantly devalued - even by other writers who happen to be women - simply because of a marketing decision. Am I truly less talented, less audacious, less erudite, less brave than my more quote-unquote literary colleagues?

My entire life has been centered around my writing, and by that I mean finding the time to write.

I love it, I hate it, it's ecstasy when I'm writing well, it's despair when I'm not. I wouldn't wish this life on anyone, nor would I, could I, ever give it up.

If a book has a predictable storyline or familiar situations, there's little satisfaction for me in writing it. A woman deciding which man she'll spend her life with? I've read that story a million times, but a stepmother deciding which of her children she'll save in a freak accident? Now that's a challenge.