When I published my first work, I thought I would never be able to go back to Lebanon. I thought they'd arrest me at the airport. I thought I would change literature as we know it. I thought I'd have men lining up at my door wanting to be my boyfriend. But later I discovered that no one read the book. Or no one cared. Right now, I have only one book translated into Arabic. Someday, maybe if the Syrian regime falls, there will be others, but probably another regime will come into power and it will employ just as much censorship.

When I'm writing I don't feel any pressure. It's after I'm done that I start freaking out. But really, when I'm in Lebanon, I don't write much because I'm surrounded by family. I feel immersed, or enmeshed, in too many currents. I love that, but it's not conducive to writing. In San Francisco, nothing interferes with me but my cats.

I'm an atheist, a devout atheist, but I find religion fascinating. Primarily because of cultural references, as in: This is what we grew up with. Both on a personal level and a collective level.

When I published my first work, I thought I would never be able to go back to Lebanon. I thought they'd arrest me at the airport. I thought I would change literature as we know it. I thought I'd have men lining up at my door wanting to be my boyfriend. But later I discovered that no one read the book. Or no one cared. Right now, I have only one book translated into Arabic. Someday, maybe if the Syrian regime falls, there will be others, but probably another regime will come into power and it will employ just as much censorship.

...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us.

I think in Arabic at times, but when I'm writing it's all in English. And I don't try to make my English sound more Arabic, because it would be phony - I'm imagining Melanie Griffith trying to do a German accent in Shining Through. It just wouldn't work. But the language in my head is a specific kind of English. It's not exactly American, not exactly British. Because everything is filtered through me, through my experience. I'm Lebanese, but not that much. American, but not that much. Gay, but not that much. The only thing I'm sure of, really, is that I'm under 5'7".

I'm surprised how often I'm asked about being a man with a woman narrator. I'm not the first, nor will I be the last. It's been done forever, but we seem to forget that. The whole notion of "write what you know" is not just boring, but wrong. Lately it seems like every novel has to be a memoir. I'm a boring person, but I'm a writer with a relatively vivid imagination. And when people ask me about how I find the voice of a woman, I tell them that my life is run by women.