It's my theory that many writers were the confidantes of one or the other parent. I was my mother's confidante; she had been her mother's confidante.

That whole business of having two homes, and that divided loyalty bind that kids get into. I mean, my parents were divorced - though I was adult - but I still grappled with being responsible to both of them.

I'm a language-oriented writer who proceeds sentence by sentence.

Character and story are suggested by the voice in the words themselves.

I write line by line, by the sound and the weight and the music of the words.

I don't do much rewriting, because each paragraph is very carefully put together.