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.

Believe in the importance of your art.

I would tell myself to get more sleep! Believe it or not, I wrote the book while finishing my PhD in English literature. It was wonderful to get away from doing literary scholarship by writing this mythical love story. I think so much of my own love for books and scholarship comes through in The Thorn and the Blossom.

It happened the way I come up with any story, which is that I took elements of my own life and put them into the story, but in a very mixed-up way.

That sort of effort has to come not only from the writer but also from a really innovative publisher like Quirk.

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

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