A female writer does definitely get more attention if she writes about male characters. It's true. It's considered somehow more literary, in the same way that it's more literary to write about supposedly male subjects, such as war. You're considered more seriously by the literary establishment.

Childhood is such a delicate tissue; what they had done this morning could snag somewhere in the little ones, make a dull, small pain that will circle back again and again, and hurt them in small ways for the rest of their lives.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.

I've never wanted to chuck my mortgage, drop the kids off at their grandparents' and run gloriously naked in fields of flax.

I think that writers have natural canvases, and my canvas, even in short stories, often seems to be the scope of a life.

While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.

At least in my case, a very simple, regular, happy life makes for better writing.