What’s your writing schedule?

Typically, Monday through Friday while my kid is at school. I sit down when she leaves and stand back up when she comes home. (Thank heaven for summer camps.) I squeeze the business side of things (accounting, publicity, contracts, etc.) in where I can, which is to say I put them off for as long as possible. Eventually, it’s no longer possible.

Where do your ideas come from?

This is the most common question writers get, and it’s the hardest to answer. The seed of a book is the thing that’s found like a penny on the ground. The narrative is brute force. I spend a lot of time – months, sometimes a year – honing a book’s story line. And the truth is, whatever dirty penny started the process is almost always spent by the end, completely unrecognizable.

Do you recommend writing classes or critique groups?

I recommend anything that works for you. I took one undergraduate writing class, which didn’t take, and have never belonged to a critique group. I do, however, have wonderful beta readers who look over various drafts and a brilliant agent with a sharp red pencil, and that’s before it gets to my actual editor, who is very good at seeing what I’m trying to do and helping me do it better. I think community and feedback are what’s important. How you get those things is a matter of preference and circumstance.

What’s your favorite book?

Everything my friends ever wrote, Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea, Euphoria by Lily King, Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell, The Matrix by Lauren Groff, The Great Man by Kate Christensen, 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sarah Ruhl, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, Driftless by David Rhodes, We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman, The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, Peace Like a River by Lief Enger, The All of It by Jeanette Haien and a whole bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting right now.

What’s the best writing advice you ever got?

Read everything you write aloud. You’ll hear what’s not working. (Advice given to me by one of my old newspaper editors. She had a sign in her office with the word “whining” and a line through it.)

Do you read your reviews?

Never. I have great respect for the art of literary criticism and read reviews of other people’s books constantly. But by the time one of my books comes out, I’m waist-deep in the next one. Having a critic’s voice in my head – positive or negative – while trying to birth something new would be a disaster.

If I send you my manuscript, can you critique it?

No, I’m sorry. That’s a legal sticky wicket, and I can’t afford the retainer. 

Will you speak with our book club/professional organization/prison population?

Happily. Drop my publicist an e-mail.

Can I find you on social media?

I’m on Instagram and Facebook where I mainly post about whatever I’m reading and loving —  so basically other people’s books —  and whatever’s new with me.