Quote

Possibly because I did start off as a journalist, my starting point has always been that you've got to keep an audience with you. Whatever you're doing, you always want a script to be a page-turner. It's very important never, ever, to feel above that.

Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

From an artist's point of view, I always want to work with the writers I admire.

Authors are influenced by everything they've ever read. If you've read widely enough, it helps you create your own mix.

I'm working with published authors and some very young undergraduates and lots of people in between. They are lovely people, and they can write.

I deal with the authors I work with, agents, and other departments of the company, talking about both the books that I'm working on and everyone else's. Then there's dealing with foreign publishers: foreigners visit all the time. People want to bounce things off the publisher, and a lot of it is encouragement.

I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Faber, whose literary history is second to none. And I'm even more excited to bring my books to a wider audience in the U.K.

Obviously, I like to write stories that are page-turners. But I always try my very, very hardest to be as factually true as possible.

All writers I know are readers first and foremost, and that's why you become a writer.

In a fit of pique, I said to my agent, 'I'm going to write something you can sell.' The idea was to write a straight page-turner, with no literary conceits.