Writing across genres has made me more prolific. When one is fighting me or simply not cutting it, I turn to another.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

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

Love is a luxury. It's something that people are allowed to indulge in when they're not simply trying to survive and keep other people alive.

If men are paid/praised more than women for the same work than it always pays to allow the man to have more freedom to pour himself into his work - think of athletes, actors over the age of 28, lawyers, accountants, college deans.

But there it is: Everyone is alone, for life, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

When a colleague of mine had a notable New York Times book, I said, turn one of the chapters in the collection into a pitch for a novel and sell it to your publisher.