I hope you know that's a joke. I don't hate JF, I don't plan on TP-ing anyone's house, and I did not take his glasses that one time.

Thanks! I was bummed that the reporter characterized it as "contorted" and...whatever other word she used, because we were having a much larger conversation about the kind of books that critics love versus the kind of books that readers love, and how frustrating it has to be for critics to constantly be championing a…

Wait, where did my reply go?

Thanks! I think of that book sort of like a love letter to Philadelphia, which is so under appreciated.

I will be your spirit animal. Fair?

We're going to have to agree to disagree on Messud. To me, when she said, "if you're looking for friends in fiction, you're reading wrong," that felt like a very clear attack on a certain kind of book. (And I'd also read her New York Magazine interview where she expressed horror at becoming "the kind of crap that's…

Oh, I think I remember. And I hope I wasn't nasty, but I think I was less than enchanted with him bragging about doing the starving artist thing and blowing off student loans (because I was the idiot who didn't realize that non-payment was an option).

Thinking more about "primal aggrievedness." I could chalk some of it up to my family history...but I also wonder if there's something gendered in the way we perceive women's anger. Like, men are allowed to criticize institutions they find old-school or unfair without anyone saying they've got emotional issues, or…

I will take fangirl praise as a counter to "primal aggrievedness" any day of the week, and twice on Thursdays! Honestly, I think ALL FALL DOWN would make a killer TV show. Like "Orange is the New Black," but in rehab!

Aqua-boxing is a thing? WHY WAS I NOT TOLD.

Never say never!

His father was a hamster and his mother smelled of elderberries!

I don't think I've ever sicced anyone on anyone else. I've expressed disappointment when, for example, JE used her Pulitzer win to slag other genres and say, "aspiring young women writers, write THIS and not THAT." As a writer of THAT (not THIS), it made me sad, and I said so, but I never said (and never would!),…

I don't have rituals, I have kids! Which means I write whenever they give me something resembling peace and quiet!

The most challenging part is the third, or fourth rewrite, when I'm so sick of a book and so sick of the characters that I just want to run away and bury myself in the new Stephen King, and I have to keep pushing. Fulfilling is hearing from readers, saying my book made them laugh, or cry, or feel less lonely. I don't…

Yep, it's a Tori reference! And yes, I like TA's music a lot. I don't listen while I write, but I listen lots of other times...and Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco both helped get me through my twenties!

I actually liked it a lot. In the category of "things about me that were not written by my mother," I thought it was very fair, and really captured who I am and how I sound (curse words and all!)

You know what? That never gets old. Neither does walking into a store and seeing your book there. Neither does someone telling you that your book made them feel less alone and more understood. So thank you!

It's on my TiVo!

Wow. This is a huge question, and I could write about it all day long. Yes, the process has changed...and not always to the author's benefit. It used to be a publisher would take a chance on a new author. What I see now is publishers trolling the self-pubbed waters, looking for books that are finding an audience, and…