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I try to write the books I would love to come upon that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness - and that can make me laugh.

I love films that show people in a way that's so real it's almost unsettling, and that's what really inspires me because I write about people. I write about people that I know, so I want to portray them and portray myself in a way that is unapologetic.

I'll write about myself, or people I know, or archetypal characters, but the goal is to get at some truth, not to necessarily convey my own experience as an individual to the world.

It is so common to write autobiographical fiction in which your own experience is thinly disguised.

I really like writing from real-life experiences. Audiences seem to prefer the stuff I couldn't have made up.

I write about real people in disguise. If anything, my characters are toned down-the truth is much more bizarre.

At one point, I had a story accepted at the 'New Yorker,' which sent off weird bells in people when I told them - 'Oh,' they thought, 'now you are a writer' - where I really had been for the last 30-odd years.

I love to write what I see and what I do and what I experience, and I like to see if people can relate to that. I don't know if I am as good at making up a story in my head that has no truth to it, so that is a challenge for me.

Getting to share the stories in my head with other people and have them enjoy those stories, and having them come to see my characters as real. That's so cool.

For me, it's actually really hard to write about my real experience. Like to do a Taylor Swift. You know what I mean? It's so brave to actually write about things that happened and things you wanna get off your chest, but I'm not really there yet.