Now that I live in Southern California, my current world certainly speaks to me, and I sense that my next book will have a more American and southerly setting. But that's certainly not to say I won't be back to Leaford.

The world's waistlines are expanding, but it's an epidemic of a larger issue in terms of our bounty having become our burden.

I have had, like most women, a lifelong preoccupation with my weight. My first published short story was a love story between an elderly man and a very young morbidity obese woman.

I hum some secret place into being, thinking of this other me, the one that only I can see, a girl called She, who is not We, a girl who I will never be.

the only thing left to do is love

When we talk about God, I think what most of us mean is some greater thing, some higher power that can help us access our own strength or give us strength.

Write,' she said, 'as if you'll never be read. That way you'll be sure to tell the truth.