I did not write about that kind of insecurity and anxiety between myself and my brothers, because my father was the dominant male figure as I was growing up in that home.

Sometimes, in my published complaints about not being a writer, I have recalled the prospect - the yearning to be a writer - as it first formed for me.

I do not think a similar goal, to attain fame, drove me when I was a child and young woman.

When I spoke at the 2012 Contemporary Women Writers' Conference in Taipei, I thought it offered an appropriate moment and site to announce my new manifesto10 and profession - to be a writer.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

Just because suddenly you have a sabbatical doesn't mean that the writing occasion comes to you.

I'm always resisting [my muse]. I'm resisting her power.