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My first and most loved real novel was 'Little Women.' I identified with the Jo character even though we were opposites. Jo was very strong-minded and brave, and I was shy and kind of a wuss, everyplace but in my own home. I wanted to be Jo. She was my alter ego. I think reading that book gave me courage.

I was quite a reader before I became a writer.

I was an outsider, never quite part of what was going on, always looking in. It turned out to be great preparation for writing fiction.

When I was in grad school, I had to admit I hadn't read Toni Morrison. My teacher, the novelist Colum McCann, said I had to. I read 'Beloved' and 'Song of Solomon.' Pretty incredible.

I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and sent it to the editor-in-chief of the children's division of Simon and Schuster and she asked me to write a little children's book for a series she was doing.

I think as a young actress, it's very rare that you read something where you're not either 'the girl' or there to serve some romantic purpose in a male dominated cast.

I read a bit of Ray Bradbury when I was a younger man. I don't read a lot of fiction anymore... like, none.

It wasn't until I was in my teens that I started admiring writers as inspirations for my own work, and my earliest influences there were Stephen King, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Richard Adams.

I was really influenced by Joan Didion and Pauline Kael; they were both at the height of their influence when I was coming into my own as a reader.

Some people become passionate readers and fans of science fiction during childhood or adolescence. I picked up on SF somewhat later than that; my escape reading of choice during my youth was historical novels, and one of my favorite writers was Mary Renault.