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.

At the beginning of the book [The Dissemblers], Ivy [Wilkes] has a long way to go in order to achieve self-sufficiency. Although she is very independent, even somewhat of a loner, she is very affected by other peoples' opinions. At the opening of the book, her ideas of success and achievement are largely defined by the approval of others; over the arc of the story, I think that begins to change a little.

I knew the basic outline of the novel [The Dissemblers] and would write whatever scene of the book I felt particularly excited about at the time.

I'm working on a novel about a girl who grows up in the circus and her relationship with her father, who grew up in Hungary when it was under Soviet control and left during the 1956 revolution. It is told from both of their perspectives, and has been a joy (and very frustrating) to research and write. Needless to say, I am very excited about my next project!

I tend to only write productively for one to two hours per day, so there is plenty of time left over for me to work a day job!

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

Publishing requires a lot of persistence and a fair amount of luck.