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On whether the characters know their worlds, or are as surprised as the reader

I think both kinds of stories are a lot of fun. It's fun when a character is sort of a stand-in for the reader, and strange things happen to them, and they are unsettled by them. But it's a lot of fun to write a story in which everybody in the story already feels eddies with the strangeness — I think there's a kind of useful dissonance, reading a world in which the people in that world are used to that place. And that's because that's true of real life; you often come into situations where everybody already knows what's going on, and you have to sort of piece it together.

On the stories she grew up reading

I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. My dad read me all of Tolkien when I was in kindergarten. My mom read me all of C.S. Lewis. And then when once I learned to read — I was a little bit slow — I would just go to the library and sort of work my way through the shelves.

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Books

Under the Radar: Books Not to Miss

My parents have explained to me that apparently I was ... a little bit lazy. I felt that if I learned how to read, that in fact they would stop reading to me ... I think what they finally did to get me to read was, they sat me down on the couch and explained that if I would learn how to read, I could read any time I wanted to read. And that was persuasive.

On romance in her work

I do love love stories. I spent a lot of the time when I was going through an MFA in creative writing program sneaking out to bookstores and reading paperback romance novels ... and I would really hope now that if anybody out there is in a writing program, that they would boldly read their romance novels. That's one of the things about figuring out what kind of story you want to write, is figuring out the kinds of things you are drawn to, even if you feel you shouldn't be drawn to them.

Read an excerpt of Get in Trouble