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" That's why you can't be a true Yankee without winter: because all the best pleasures are earned - the fire, the fried oysters; the warmer seasons, too. Who knows the real worth of summer at the beach without a good taste of the seaside in winter? "

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" I'm a fictional monogamist - I can only work on one thing at a time - but each novel starts growing in my head when I'm about midway through the previous novel. "

Julia Glass

Work

Time

I Can

" I love it when I start a book that is so good that all I want to do is get back to my own writing, in a competitive way. "

" I am not opposed to e-readers. Any technology that encourages the reading of literature is a good thing. "

Julia Glass

Reading

Good

" I don't see how you can write well if you're not reading well at the same time. I think the only risk is reading too many books of one 'type' in a row. "

" I have struggled for decades now with the fear of and resistance to change - mostly in the realms of technology, transportation, and the ways people choose to communicate. If I had a theme song, it would be that lovely song 'I'm Old-Fashioned,' as sung by Ella Fitzgerald. "

" Somewhat sadly, the survival of many bookstores now depends on selling merchandise other than books. "

" In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding. "

" From fifth grade on, I worked at our public library. The pay, a pittance, was almost superfluous. All through high school, I looked forward to summer as the time when I could work at the library four or five days a week. I was never a camp counselor, a lifeguard, a scooper of ice cream. "

" I love to eat, I love to feed people, and I'm a great cook. I joked with my friends that I wanted to write a book where desserts had to be extensively researched, since I have a terrible sweet tooth. My particular downfall is cake. "

" Though I'm a New Englander, I'm very indoorsy once the mercury drops. "

" In my fairly disorganized life, yellow stickies are too easily lost, and as for software, I try to avoid using my computer as much more than a typewriter and a post office. I rely on my lifelong habit of daydreaming to spin my stories. "

" I grew up in a home where animals were ever-present and often dominated our lives. There were always horses, dogs, and cats, as well as a revolving infirmary of injured wildlife being nursed by my sister the aspiring vet. "

" Readers tell me that my novels are filled with significant mothers. Do I realize this? Do I do it on purpose? The truth is, I don't. I think of myself as a writer of family stories. I write more often than not from a male point of view, and I usually begin by focusing on siblings, spouses, even fathers, before I think about the mothers. "

" My first draft is always way too long; my books start out with delusions of 'War and Peace' - and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say she's a midwife rather than a surgeon. "

" In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate. "

Julia Glass

Comfort Zone

Experience

" Winter sports aren't my thing. You can have your boards and blades and your glacier-gripping cleats: My feet prefer to negotiate the ground on a pair of dependable soles. "

" I see life as increasingly complex, vivid, colorful, crazy, chaotic. That's the world I write about... the world I live in. "

" Call me territorial or narcissistic, but I avoid novels about people who share my vocation. "

Julia Glass

Avoid

People

" My readers often tell me that what they admire about my books is my ability to write from so many points of view. My challenge to myself is whether I'll ever be able to write a novel just from one point of view. It seems impossible. "

Julia Glass

Challenge

View

" When I give myself over to a good novel, I surrender to the truths fashioned from one writer's heart, mind and soul. I do not waste a nanosecond wondering whether what I'm reading 'really happened.' "

" The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.' "

" A fine memoir is to a fine novel as a well-wrought blanket is to a fancifully embroidered patchwork quilt. The memoir, a logical creation, dissects and dignifies reality. Fiction, wholly extravagant, magnifies it and gives it moral shape. Fiction has no practical purpose. Fiction, after all, is art. "

" I wonder if it's in the nature of fiction writers to never quite see their own lives as 'real,' since we are always making stuff up! "

" Virginia Woolf was wrong. You do not need a room of your own to write. "

" Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance. "

" The best booksellers are like trustworthy pushers: Whatever they're dealing, you take it. "

" Finally, in my early 30s, I started writing fiction for the first time as an adult. That felt so scary, and I spent a few years feeling miserably 'behind' my high-achieving friends. But I persevered and obviously have no regrets. "

" My love of books - not just of their tactile pleasures but of their astonishing variety - was born in a book-filled house; my father is a scholar. "

" I was ridiculed in public school for being smart. A teacher's pet. "

" As a writer of fiction, I spend my days inventing real lives for make-believe people; what I create can only seem real. "