Sometimes you meet someone and you know that your life will be different from then on.

I wrote before I could write. I got my hands on a journal, maybe a hand-me-down; I had three older siblings. My first entries are in the handwriting of the sister closets in age (5 years my senior). She must have gotten tired of my dictations because she gave up and then my blocky scrawl shows up. I wrote plays as a kid mostly.

As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.

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

Basically if you burst into my office the walls themselves will flutter as if alive - maybe that's the reason for all the wings in 'Pure.

Weakness, like not being able to bury the past. Weakness, like not giving up hope when you know you should.

Writers aren't born properly labeled so it is hard to know one when one appears.