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

My writing has to support more than my research habit, but I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.

That bedrock faith that I could write was what blinded me to attempts to discourage me.

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.

I think my prose reads as if English were my second language. By the time I get to the end of a paragraph, I'm dodging bullets and gasping for breath.

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 do have a small collection of traditional SF ideas which I've never been able to sell. I'm known as a fantasy writer and neither my agent nor my editors want to risk my brand by jumping genre.