I'd had no particular interest in the Southwest at all as a young girl, and I was completely surprised that the desert stole my heart to the extent it did.

When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.

Magic Realism is not new. The label's new, the specific Latin American form of it is new, its modern popularity is new, but it's been around as long as literature has been around.

I divide my time between homes in Arizona and England, six months a year in each place.

A good novel editor is invisible.

But for me, really, the written word is always stronger than film.

I've only been living in England for the last 10 years, if you don't count my student years.