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I'm not a writer who refuses to talk about a book until I've finished.

My first novel, 'John Crow's Devil,' freed me up to write about the past, and 'The Book of Night Women' freed me up to have a book totally based on voice and being very spontaneous.

At thirty-five, having spent over twenty years running varied businesses for my family, I decided to sit down and write my first novel. I had never written anything longer than a couple of pages till then and was foolishly attempting to write a hundred-thousand words.

I love to read, and I like the fact that there's some silence in my life.

If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.

I read my books aloud before they were published.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I didn't read a novel all the way through until after high school. Blasphemy, I know. I'm an author now. Books and words are my world.

I resisted writing a book for a long time because I didn't want to invade anyone else's privacy or hurt anyone or anger anyone.

I've never written anything that hasn't been in my mind for a long time - seven or eight years.

I was very afraid to write a novel - it was a dream for a very long time, and it was one of the few things that I was afraid to try.