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I was undeterred by the danger of traveling as a single American woman through Taliban-governed land. I believed in the stories I wanted to tell, the stories I felt were underreported, and I was convinced that that belief would keep me alive.

I'm interested in stories that aren't getting told: it's where my interests lie.

I tell the stories that are of interest to me.

You can't help but reveal your bias, and you can't but invest personally in any story that you tell.

I was just fascinated with how everyone else in the world lived, and I was interested in telling their story.

Stories don't interest me.

Crime and legal stories, broadly speaking, are just where my interest happens to lie.

I'm still very interested in telling one-of-a-kind women's stories.

I think I'm still chewing on my years as a foreign correspondent. I found myself covering catastrophes - war, uprising, famine, refugee crises - and witnessing how people were affected by dire situations. When I find a story from the past, I bring some of those lessons to bear on the narrative.

When the Taliban took over in 1996, the news of their crimes hit the Toronto papers. As a feminist and as an anti-war activist, I heard about what was happening to women, and I wanted to do something to support those folks.