It's not that I bounce ideas off of my children as much as it is that having children has had a profound effect on the way I see the world. They have mined my soul. They've made me a better person and therefore a more empathetic writer.

The basic rule of storytelling is 'show, don't tell.

Different genres allow me to not feel so hemmed in by my own voice, tics, style.

Try to think of writing as a gift - more complexly put: it is the curse and the cure.

I don't know when I'm writing dark. I don't know when I'm writing funny or even heartbreaking. I'm always just trying to write it true.

I believe we're brutes, but then, miraculously, there are those among us who stand up against that brutishness and remind us of the goodness we're capable of.

Women are constantly underestimated in our power, our reach, our collective pull.