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.

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've heard some readers saying they wished the story was longer, and I completely understand that desire - we all like to sink into a nice, long novel.

My uncommon sense told me to write this book [Turn and blossom], even though I was in the middle of making final revisions to my dissertation! Common sense would have said, finish the dissertation and get a good, solid academic position. But instead, I got to do something that no one else has done, because I don't think anyone has written a book quite like this one. And look at how beautiful it is!

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.

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

It's appropriate to have magic in a love story, because magic is a sort of metaphor for what love feels like? When we fall in love, the world feels magical to us. It becomes an enchanted place.