Red Sox fans have been pushed to the brink over the years, but that's how faith grows stronger.

You learn to exploit genre for the more important things - to my mind - like story, character, image, language.

Literature has done great work for feminism - writing and reading are a practice of empathy - and great literature will continue to do so.

My work is to know the characters intimately and to tell their story.

My childhood was marked by the great fear of nuclear holocaust. We practiced our Civil Defense Drills, lining up in hallways, curled to the floor, but we knew we'd die or, worse, survive only to suffer radiation and slow death.

Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.