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.

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

I lived in New Mexico until I was seventeen, and honestly I've been homesick ever since I left.

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 am a tragically bad artist.

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.