I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me, that editing process feels like a form of play, like a puzzle that needs solving, and it's one of the most satisfying parts of writing.

As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling.

It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.

I love conventional apocalypse movies. In movies, I like to be with the president, or the scientist trying to solve the problem, but that's not the kind of fiction that I like to read.

Sentences or solutions occur to me in the shower, or while running on the treadmill, or riding on the subway.