'Arctic Summer,' as you might know, is the title of Forster's one unfinished novel.

I've been wanting to write a book about what goes into creating a novel, and the story behind 'A Passage to India' is especially interesting.

Most writers battle with periods of being blocked; it's almost an occupational hazard. But in the writing of his last and greatest novel, 'A Passage to India,' E. M. Forster got stuck for nine years.

One of the questions writers bump up against in their work, whether they know it or not, is about lying. Because fiction is a form of deceit, and one's abilities are measured by how convincingly one can persuade readers that these events really happened.

Traveling is one of few zones of experience where you are not directly plugged into the world around you. You're not part of the society you're passing through.

I like to believe that if you pay close attention to the sentences as they unfold, they will draw you in rather than pushing you away.