It makes me happy that you let my thoughts, words, and ideas visit with yours. Most of my life is defined by being a reader — a passionate, sometimes sloppy, often dyslexic and occasionally dense reader.

Everyone has a different idea about, and experience of, reading. Mine has always felt like having a conversation with the writer of the book I held. Writing fiction, while mostly a solitary and private affair that often involves days struggling with no more than a sentence or paragraph, offers me the chance to be on the other side of that conversation.

Because my novels have been translated into Dutch, German, Chinese and Japanese, I feel as if I send my work out into the world as a way of having more conversations than I could possibly arrange over cups of tea or glasses of wine.

And for that I am really grateful.