When I was eight years old, I wrote a paragraph-long short story about a goat on my mother's hundred-pound, black-and-white-screen laptop. The story came about largely because I liked the way the word 'goat' looked on the page, but I decided then and there that I wanted to be a writer. That desire never changed.

I am very interested in place, and the influences of place on characters.

My family lived in Egypt from 1993 to 1996.

No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

We're all entitled to our superstitions.

In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.

I do no writing while I'm in Belgrade visiting my grandma.