When the kids were growing up, I think they thought the worst thing about me being a mom is that I would laugh at them. They would say something that they thought was serious and intense and I would laugh. I thought it was funny, but they don't want to be laughed at.

In general, I think every novel is a political novel, in that every novel is an argument about how the world works, who has power, who has a voice, what we should care about. But political novels can be boringly polemical if they end up being too black and white, too one dimensional, like war is bad, killing people is wrong.

I don't make fun of my characters. I just like to laugh and I think people are funny and the world is funny.

I've always been a teaser, even as a kid.

I love ghost stories, I love to read them, and I love the idea of being haunted.

I think someone who writes a ghost story probably needs to believe it in some way.

When I was in college, I had a friend who was an artist and her theory was that all the best art in the world is funny/sad. That was her favorite genre. Funny/sad are probably my two favorite tones.

My natural tendency is to fall in love with language and character and setting, and kind of forget about pacing. Narrative tension doesn't come naturally to me, and if it does feel fast-paced that makes me incredibly happy.

The we voice is rare, and the communal impulse of the we is interesting to me.

Writers like Twain, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Russell Banks, Carolyn Chute, Alice Walker, so many others that I read coming up as a writer, that helped form my ideas of what it means to be American - and an American writer. I'm always in conversation with them.

It is radical for a woman to choose to survive and to choose to eat anything.

There are so many people who write really interesting work and try super hard and still don't get published.

It's really difficult to know what is the best way forward when you're not getting a lot of support - and probably most writers aren't getting enough support.

I've heard a lot of editors and agents say, If the book is good, it will get published. I totally disagree with that.