Women who write thrillers are called 'dark.' Male writers are called 'powerful.'
Denise Mina is probably one of the most gifted writers out there, whether it's mystery or literary or whatever label you want to give it.
I love twins stories.
Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.
I write fifteen hours a day, stopping at Oprah-o'clock.
Growing up in Georgia in the southeastern United States, I was always reading and always kept to myself. I never felt isolated, though; I just liked being alone.
I always wanted to be a writer. In the beginning, I thought I had to rewrite 'Gone with the Wind,' but eventually, I found my way and realized that wasn't me.
The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'
I started Save the Libraries in 2010 by hosting a big fundraiser in my city library of DeKalb County in Atlanta. Through that, I learned that even with fundraisers, libraries often don't make money - they just barely break even.
My sister is dyslexic, and she's so smart, so intelligent in all of the ways that matter.
My father and his eight siblings grew up in the kind of poverty that Americans don't like to talk about unless a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina strikes, and then the conversation only lasts as long as the news cycle. His family squatted in shacks. The children scavenged for food.
I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.
I read about violent things. I think what I get out of that is entertainment by learning about different things, and reading the genre and getting an understanding of motivations. But at the end of the day, it's still a book, and I can walk away.
If you're going to write thrillers, you have to make a decision if you are going to be realistic or go off and over.
I'm just not a crazy, stay-out-all-night sort of person. I love writing.
With 'Pretty Girls,' I saw the opportunity to talk not just about crime but what crime leaves behind.
When I became a published writer, I said, 'Whatever I can do to help the libraries I want to do,' so all of my book tours since then have involved me coming to a library and talking about how important libraries are for a community.
My sister lived in England for a while when I was 12, and I came to visit her, and I spent most of the time in her flat reading.
I grew up watching the 'People's Choice Awards.'
I'm going to name a name: Janet Evanovich. She writes the same book over and over, and I read every single one of them and eagerly anticipate them.
When you read a book, you are letting another person distract your thoughts and work your emotions. If they are adept, there's nothing better than turning off and getting lost.
I don't get hung up a lot on angst.
I've always been drawn to historical fiction.
Usually, when inspiration strikes late, the light of day reveals that I haven't gotten an idea for a book so much as a psychiatric case study.
When I was little, my grandmother would take me to church with her, and she would introduce me to people.
I've never purposefully based a character on any one person I know, but I'm certain there are amalgamations that exist.
I think some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.
Good writers know that crime is an entre into telling a greater story about character. Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.
Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.
It seems like women are always told, 'It is not your time.'
I'm over the word 'like' in conversation, and 'you know' seems to be the placeholder of choice, but when I'm writing dialogue, I tend to use those phrases because that's how people talk.
I thought I had to write literature and add my name to the list of great Southern storytellers. Fortunately for me, no one wanted to read any of those stories. They got rejected by everyone. Sometimes, I would get a note saying they liked the writing, but the story simply didn't work.
It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.
I have a superhero complex. If I see anything bad happen, I run towards it, rather idiotically because, after all, what could I do?
My books are never about the crimes. They are about how the characters react to the crimes.
Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them. You don't read a book - you experience it. Every story opens up a new world.
Graphic novels let you take risks that just wouldn't fly in the conventional book form.
Random House is definitely invested in keeping libraries healthy.
There's a tendency among some male writers to make the women in their stories weak and needing of rescue so that their hero looks like a manly man.
Libraries are the backbone of our education system.
Readers are very, very savvy, and I don't want to insult them by making them think I'm too lazy to get it right.
The familiar trope of the woman in peril doesn't really interest me.
Being a Southerner, I'm interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.
When you grow up starving, you cannot point with pride to a book you've just spent six hours reading. Picking cotton, sewing flour bags into clothes - those were the skills my father grew up appreciating.
Though he was not a reader himself, my father understood that reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.
A book I would take with me to a desert island is 'Paradise Lost,' which I studied in college and hated so much by the end of the class that I never wanted to see it again.
If you wear them outside, they stop being pyjamas. I wear mine to the mail box, which is right in front of my house - that's my limit. Anything else is wrong.
It's just my goal to deliver the best story I can, and I want to make sure each book is better than the last, and in order to do that, I have to take chances.
I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where for the first time in my life I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books. This was where I discovered 'Encyclopedia Brown' and 'Nancy Drew,' 'Gone With the Wind' and 'Rebecca.' This was where I became inspired to be a writer.
