The relationship between reader and writer is reciprocal in a way. We co-create each other. We are constantly emerging out of the relationship we have with others.

There's something about the idea of writing, and thinking about writing as a form of prayer - the way as a writer you call out into the world and throw your words into the world. You're not praying to a god, but you're almost conjuring a reader to arrive. That's what books do: they're an invitation to readers.

I think all characters are facets of the writer. In a way, they have to be if you're going to write them convincingly.

For a writer, you definitely do not want to be in the mainstream. You want to be on the edge because that's where the vantage point is. That's where you can see.

Every relationship between persons causes a picture of each to take form in the mind of the other, and this picture evidently is in reciprocal relationship with that personal relationship.

It makes me nuts, the idea that if you put a political struggle at the heart of your book, then it has to be that the author - me - is trying in some way to push my views onto my readers.