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

From beginning to end, the novel [Dissemblers] took about three and a half years to write. I didn't write it chronologically.

Writing a book set in New Mexico was partially a way to express my own love for the state, and partially a way to prudently follow the advice to write what you know.

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.

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 was at an art museum with my parents, and was quite taken with a [Vincent] Van Gogh painting. I stood admiring the painting for some time, and then realized that in addition to feeling moved by the beauty of the painting, I felt a little jealous of the painter.

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