I am currently in nursing school, so one day I will be both a nurse and a writer.

I do think that it is one of the eternal questions about art, though - is all art intrinsically selfish?

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

I was envious of [Vincent] Van Gogh because I could never make a painting that beautiful! (Ridiculous, I know.) That was when the character of Ivy [Wilkes] began to take shape for me.

Ivy [Wilkes] does exhibit a certain impatience at the beginning of the book [The Dissemblers]. She doesn't want to wait through years of hard work and insignificance to make her mark on the art world. Part of her growth is in realizing - even embracing - that the process of art is more important than the product or the recognition.

I am currently in nursing school, so one day I will be both a nurse and a writer.

I was only loosely aware of [Georgia] O'Keeffe's work. Primarily, I had seen her famous paintings of skulls with flowers, which are not my favorite. I didn't really become familiar with her work until after I started writing the book, but the more I learned about her the more I admired her.