Sometimes when reading aloud to my husband, I'll start crying. It completely stuns me. As if the words in my body and on the page - in relation to each other - are cocooned against my own feelings about what I'm writing until they're loosed in the air and become their own. Then I realize what I may or may not have done.

Love is selfless, it is a weakness, a giving in, a constant falling.

The poem has to bear the weight with image, language... the screenplay with dialogue, plot.

The fact is there are many women who nod politely, even agree openly within their male-dominated often highly educated cultures, but vote their own minds.

I'm a writer of faith. I was raised Catholic, and I have a deeply Catholic imagination.

If I'd learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can't be a man, write like one.

You want the greatest trick for writing a novel? Here it is: imagine urgently whispering your story into one person's ear - and only one. This one visualization will clarify every word choice you make.