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I grew up with Bible stories, which are like fairy tales, because my father was a minister. We heard verses and prayers every day. I liked the gorier Bible stories. I did have a book of Chinese fairy tales. All the people except the elders looked like Italians. But we were not a family that had fiction books.

I have been writing fairy tales for as long as I can remember. Not much has changed in terms of my natural attraction to the narrative techniques of fairy tales. My appreciation of them in the traditional stories has deepened, especially of flat and unadorned language, intuitive logic, abstraction, and everyday magic.

As I read more and more fairy tales as an adult, I found massive collusion between their 'subjects' and those in my fiction: childhood, nature, sexuality, transformation. I realized that it wasn't by accident that I was drawn to their narrative structure and motifs.

I always felt and still feel that fairy tales have an emotional truth that is so deep that there are few things that really rival them.

I didn't like fairy tales when I was younger. I found a lot of fairy tales scary. They really didn't sit well with me.

I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales.

As a child, I loved fairy tales because the story, the what-comes-next, is paramount. As an adult, I'm fascinated by their logic and illogic.

I love fairy tales because I think that behind fairy tales, there is always a meaning.

If I'm honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.

The thing is, fairytales were once a very gritty way for people to dialogue about aspects of life.