I've always been fascinated by the concept of time.

When I returned to short stories, I'd started working on what is still central to much of what I try to do: putting myself in the place of the alien rather than describing it from an outside point of view.

I'm just being honest about the fact that a second language won't resonate with you like the first does.

I have control of my own style.

What I do with the story itself varies of course, but what I want to do is to present the world so that the reader can access it without tripping over the details.

All my stories and worlds spring from the basic principle of being a slave to the premise, to follow the consequences wherever they may lead without taking any easy or comfortable ways out.

My early stories revolved around reality and faith. I wrote a series of stories about the darker aspects of Christian myth: a woman who hides in the attic and watches the Apocalypse, a cult whose members preserve themselves in huge formalin tubs waiting for the Second Coming, and so on.