In the Forest of Forgetting do you remember any romances? All the relationships in those stories are dark and twisted - people fall in love, but they really shouldn't have. There's even a story about a marriage, but it focuses on a woman who marries a bear!

The book itself [The Thorn and The Blossom] is bound accordion-style: it has no spine, so it can open in either direction, and it's in a slipcase.

I loved writing something I'd never written before, and I wanted to write not just about "true love" but also a human relationship.

If readers like The Thorn and the Blossom, which I would call literary fantasy, I think they would like books such as Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love, Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen.

If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.

If you look at the natural world, really look at it, it's always magical.

I worry very much that people won't like it, or will think it's simply silly. But I have a post-it note above my desk that says "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" And if I weren't afraid, I would do a poetry collection.