When you're in a place, the details you focus on are different than details you focus on when you're writing about it.

I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.

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

When you're in a place, the details you focus on are different than details you focus on when you're writing about it.

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.

In the end, all you want is someone to long for you when it comes time to put you in the ground.

My family lived in Egypt from 1993 to 1996.