As a reader I gravitate toward work that rests in the gray area, that doesn't come with easy answers.

I don't see the direct correlation between my personal life and the novel I'm writing until I'm at the end of the novel or very close to it.

I think there's a fine line between being so obtuse that you lose the reader completely, which is the intention for some writers, though it isn't mine. I work hard at grounding the world as much as possible in the world we do recognize.

What I find interesting and heartening, though, is that there does seem to be a shift in the subject matter being written about by women that is doing well in the culture. We're seeing more women writing dystopian fiction, more women writing novels set post-apocalyptic settings, subjects and themes that used to be dominated by men.

I'd say that most of life seems to me to be that way, a mixture of the mundane and the mythic, when you're living the life of the mind.

I tend to start with a fantastical premise, and then I place it in the world we know. Or, really, it places itself. Honestly, I feel that I have very little control of the magical aspect, as that's just what comes out for me.

When a certain show or film or celebrity captures the imagination of the masses that has a good deal to say about us, I think, and what is happening in our collective psyche.