I think I became a writer because of my love of stories and an inability to stop asking, 'What if?'

I call Algonquin Books 'the gods and goddesses of publishing.' Not only did they give me a career, they care deeply about every writer in their flock.

If a kid disappears, now there's Amber Alerts: they know this-this-this. In the '50s, we kids wandered around. Nobody knew what you were doing.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. Its like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

I just love that feeling of being in another world, of creating characters and watching where they go.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. It's like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

Literature can allow us to experience the best side of humankind, where instead of giving up, we struggle desperately in the ruins for love, connection and hope.

E-readers are changing the way we read, and the author is now required to get out there and be a kind of showman, an unlikely role for introspective people used to working in their pajamas!

I absolutely want and prize and love and revere every single media review I get, but if I got 50 reviews from major newspapers and one review from Amazon, I still would feel a little weird: 'What's going on? Why aren't people responding?'

I think the Internet has made things a lot easier. Twitter and Facebook let you really connect to your readers effortlessly!

I write about what haunts me, and I write the books I myself am dying to read. I love it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

Indie bookstores love writers as much as they love readers, and there is something about a community store, where you walk in, you feel known, and the delight in books is just infectious.

Is there nothing the prodigiously talented Ann Patchett can't do? She's channeled the world of opera, Boston politics, magic, unwed motherhood, and race relations, creating scenarios so indelible, you swear they are right outside your door.

I tell myself that some names can be mistakes, like Mxyplyzyk, a store in New York that lost customers because few could spell its name to look up the address. I tell myself that lots of writers agonize over titles, and often get them wrong at first.

Do what you love. Live fearlessly and take risks. Don't take no for an answer from anyone -- go ahead and prove the naysayers wrong. Believe that anything can be possible.

I had a nervous breakdown at 17 when my first love left me, and he was a typical bad boy, albeit a charismatic one, with a string of broken hearts trailing behind him.

Housewives of the 1950s were supposed to create show-stopping meals every night for their hard-working husbands.

I was a bookworm who aced every test -- until third grade, when my teacher handed out a pop quiz about Jesus and the Apostles.

I am totally and completely addicted to movies. Jeff, my husband and I, watch movies every night and go out to the movies constantly.

I had a writing professor at Brandeis who told me I'd never make it -- and when I sold my first novel a few years later, I sent him a copy!