Interview
 Q: This collection of nine stories illustrates the desperation, darkness, and evil found in the female of the species. A woman finds that killing her husband is her only way out; a young girl goes to great heights for attention; and a mother befriends her stalker in order to kill for her. Where did some of these ideas come from?
A: Stories come to us from the world, from our own, often transformed experiences, and out of our imagination. The "female of the species" is traditionally suppressed, so her rebellion must be elliptical.
Q: "Doll: A Romance of the Mississippi" appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, 2004; "The Haunting" in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, 2004; and "Tell Me You Forgive Me?" in The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, Vol.3." In your opinion, what does it take to write a good mystery short story?
A: What I love about mystery stories is the element of surprise that nonetheless causes us to feel, "This is inevitable." I also love the combination of economy of prose with storytelling.
Q: Why does the subject of "evil and the female of the species" interest you?
A: It isn't necessarily the case that the girls and women in my stories are "evil" but only that they become empowered, as men usually are, through forcefulness, even violence.
Q: What's the most fascinating part about writing mysteries?
A: Storytelling is a fascinating process. You begin with a situation, and characters imagined as "real," and see how, interacting, they work out their own destinies, in a sense. "Character is fate."
Q: You're a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award, and you've written several bestsellers. Because of your literary accomplishments, do you feel a certain amount of pressure when you sit down to write another novel?
A: Pressure, which is more like stress, or a prevailing anxiety, comes from within. "Will I be able to evoke in the reader the complex emotions that I feel so powerfully in this work?"
Q: If you're struggling with your writing, where do you seek inspiration?
A: Like most writers, I read as much as I can, since reading is my first love. "Inspiration" comes from any and all sources. But especially from spending time alone, simply thinking, dreaming, looking out the window. The death of inspiration is busyness and fragmentation.
Art: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610), Judith and Holofernes
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