As if our happiness, our good fortune, might rub off, contestants ask us for a light: they brush up against us in the halls, pull strands of hair off our clothing. Whenever we leave our bed, our room -- not often -- two or three are sure to be lurking just outside our door.

Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.

Whether or not this story has a happy ending depends, of course, on who is reading it. Whether you are a wolf or a girl.

A monster. You and your friends, all of you. Pretty monsters. It's a stage all girls go through. If you're lucky you get through it without doing any permanent damage to yourself or anyone else.

When I'm up for an award, there are usually two or three other things on the ballot that I like better than my own fiction.

Remember, when you don’t know what to do, it never hurts to play Scrabble. It’s like reading the I Ching or tea leaves.

I would like to write a novel, or at least try to write one, although my motives are not entirely pure. For one thing, I get asked about writing novels so much that I feel guilty about never having written one. And although I have no strong desire to write a novel, I would hate not to try. That would just be silly. On the other hand, I hate the idea of slogging through something that turns out to be not good.