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.

When I finished the book [The Dissemblers], I sent it to one billion agents, and got one billion rejections.

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.

Yet [Georgia O'Keeffe ] always stayed true to her vision, and was at times uncompromising in following the path she saw for herself.

When Ivy [Wilkes] begins her work in forgery, she doesn't yet know the toll that it will take on her own original work. She even thinks it might be a way to find inspiration. By the time she realizes that she has lost her own voice, she is thoroughly entangled in the forgery mess.

The motivation to paint seems more pure, or at least more personal, when the artist is doing it for herself.

I read letters and journal entries by [Georgia] O'Keeffe (which were infinitely more useful than any critical analysis of her work).