I really became convinced I wanted to tell the story of the real-life model for the Degas sculpture ‘Little Dancer Aged 14,’ which was unveiled in 1881, the Belle Epoque.

In those clouds I have seen aberrations-flecks of shimmering silver, orbs of color a shade more intense than their surroundings. I have seen them more than once, and I haves decided they are prayers, mine and everyone else’s, too.

I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn’t be any good.

I don’t wait for inspiration. I get up and write every day.

I'm very comfortable with tweeting, I have a very active author Facebook page, I Skype book clubs all over the world.

I keep writing because it is deeply pleasurable to me.

Edgar Degas's famous sculpture, 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,' served as my muse for 'The Painted Girls.' I came upon a television documentary on the work, and as someone who held the sculpture in high esteem and who largely considered ballet to be the high-minded pursuit of privileged young girls, I was struck by what I would learn.

A tour of the Mexico City of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo led by Barbara Kingsolver would be nice. And I certainly wouldn't turn down a tour of Johannes Vermeer's Delft led by Tracey Chevalier.

I write to explore something that fascinates me, and I write the way I do because it is the only way I know how to write.

It breaks my heart that we are always being nudged toward the most recently published books, when so many worthy books have gone unexplored.