I am always interested in characters who are in these kinds of transitional moments in their lives, when it's not clear where they're going to end up. It's interesting territory for fiction.

Knowing that we'd meet Ruby at the point where she stopped believing, I knew I was also going to have to deal with what you do with your capacity for belief if you don't have an object for your belief.

Living in the world of the workshop, which I do as a teacher, you have to be articulate about craft. And that often involves imposing analysis on work that's in a pretty raw state.

I am always interested in characters who are in these kinds of transitional moments in their lives, when it's not clear where they're going to end up. It's interesting territory for fiction.

The biggest problem in the fictional treatment of sex is that it's not treated as part of the story but as a pause from the story. The best sex scenes in fiction are the ones that advance the story.

I have even taught classes on writing about sex, and I've looked closely at different writers' sex scenes. On the level of craft I've given it a lot of thought. The pitfalls are simple: It can sound clinical or medical, which isn't right, or pornographic, because the characters disappear.

A knowledge of craft is not the enemy of creativity. You sit down to write and realize, today's going to be a really unconscious day and I'm going to let it all out. Or, today's going to be analytical. And some days all mixed up.