When I'm not writing or tweaking my computer, I do embroidery. When I'm not plunging into the past, tweaking, or embroidering, I'm reading books about history, computers, or embroidery.

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

I'm one of those writers who, when writing, believes she's god-and that she hasn't bestowed free will on any of her characters. In that sense there are no surprises in any of my books.

I've read short stories that are as dense as a 19th century novel and novels that really are short stories filled with a lot of helium.

When I have an idea, it goes from vague, cloudy notion to 100,000 words in a heartbeat.

I'm a writer first and an editor second... or maybe third or even fourth. Successful editing requires a very specific set of skills, and I don't claim to have all of them at my command.

I'm dense when it comes to discouragement.