I would like to believe that most people, regardless of gender, are good and kind. The good men in my stories are the rule. It's the bad men that are the exception and because I tend toward the dark in my fiction, you see more of the exception than the rule.

I wrote myself back together. I wrote myself toward a stronger version of myself . . . Through writing and feminism, I also found that if I was a little bit brave, another woman might hear me and see me and recognize that none of us are the nothing the world tries to tell us we are.

Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.

I can't please everyone. I am trying not to let the pressure consume me.

You have to be consistent. You have to be yourself. You have to be committed to what you're doing. You have to not be afraid to be ambitious.

I'll learn how to rest, though. I can still learn new tricks.

Maybe I'm a bad feminist, but I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement. I have strong opinions about misogyny, institutional sexism that consistently places women at a disadvantage, the inequity in pay, the cult of beauty and thinness, the repeated attacks on reproductive freedom, violence against women, and on and on. I am as committed to fighting fiercely for equality as I am committed to disrupting the notion that there is an essential feminism.