We're all entitled to our superstitions.

At the end of the day, despite all the other great things that literature does in society and in a person's life, I think that we read to escape. And I think that place, more than anything, provides that escape quickly, if an author is engaged with the place.

In the mess of moving from place to place, I skipped two grades in the space of one year.

A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

In terms of people that I know, my grandmother and my mother are huge influences on my writing life because they are both massively supportive and always have been of my career.

My road to publishing actually came through a colleague who connected me to my agent, and the faculty at Cornell was very supportive.