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

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

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

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.

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

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

I am a tragically bad artist.