Of course, with Papaveria Press, you know the book itself is going to be beautiful.

Writing two stories [in the Thorn and the Blossom] about the same set of events that were complete stories in themselves, but also added up to a larger story. As I was writing them, I kept going back and forth, because something would happen in one story that would have to be reflected in the other story. And yet the same event would also have to be perceived in different ways by Brendan and Evelyn, because they are different people with their own interpretations.

The only thing worth thinking about, when I write a story, is whether I like it, whether I want to write it, whether it excites me.

Jorge Luis Borges wrote a poem when he was in his 80s about one day writing the book that would justify him. This was long after he had become one of the great masters, a writer everyone looks up to and reveres. As artists, I don't think we ever see ourselves as done. We always think we're at the beginning . . .

I think part of my purpose in this life is to talk about magic, and to make it.

I'm working on a poetry collection for Papaveria Press . It fills me with trepidation - poetry is something I'm much more self-conscious about than prose.

When we tell stories about things that are important - love, fear, beauty - we change the way people think about the world. Writers are, or should be, truth-tellers even when the stories themselves are fantasy.