Creative Writing Programmes Are Not Very Necessary.

When The Writing Is Going Well, I'm Obsessive. I Don't Shower, I Don't Take Phone Calls, I Hardly Respond To Text Messages, I Don't Do Email. I Take Breaks Only To Read, And Usually I Read Poetry. When It's Not Going Well, I Just Lie In Bed And Eat Chocolate.

I Write From Real Life. I Am An Unrepentant Eavesdropper And A Collector Of Stories. I Record Bits Of Overheard Dialogue.

...he Did Not Want Me To Seek The Whys, Because There Are Some Things That Happen For Which We Can Formulate No Whys, For Which Whys Simply Do Not Exist And, Perhaps, Are Not Necessary.

I Think It's Important To Humanize History; Fiction Can Help Us Remember. A Lot Of Books I've Read In The Past Have Been So Much More Important Than Textbooks - There Is An Emotional Connection With One Particular Person. I'm Very Much Of A Research-is-important Type Of Fiction Writer, Even For Contemporary Fiction. I Wrote About Blogs In America And I've Never Blogged. But I Read Many, Many Blogs - Usually About Feminist Things, Or About Race, Or About Hair.

Power Is The Ability Not Just To Tell The Story Of Another Person, But To Make It The Definitive Story Of That Person.