Now I am as big of an [ Georgia] O'Keeffe admirer as Ivy [Wilkes] is, but that came through writing the book.

I started writing about New Mexico in an autobiography class I was taking for school, and realized that it was very inspiring place for me.

I've spent many a day worrying that I will never be able to write again!

Because Ivy [Wilkes] is just starting out as an artist, I wanted to focus on [Georgia] O'Keeffe's experiences when she was just starting out. I suspect there is a difference between being an unknown artist and being a celebrated artist. When nobody knows your work, nobody except you really cares whether or not you paint.

I find that time constraints actually make me more productive, and "real world" experiences provide a lot of inspiration to write.

I was loosely aware that most of my characters were fundamentally selfish people, but I didn't intentionally make that a theme.

Finally, I found a wonderful agent who wanted to work with me, and she sent it to one billion publishers and received one billion rejections, until I was fortunate enough to be matched up with the Permanent Press.