It gave me a sharp kind of sadness to think that no matter how much I loved him and tried to put him back together again, he might stay broken forever.

My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.

I took my first creative writing class when I was 24, then went onto to get a graduate degree in poetry. I've sort of never looked back from there.

Was my happiness so completely tied to him now that I could only feel like myself when he was near?

It had never occurred to me to write a historical novel, but then I found Hadley in the pages of Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast' and wanted to know more about her - who she was, how she and Ernest met and fell in love, what it was like for her to be married to such a demanding and stormy force of nature.

Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all.