What inspires me most to write is the act of traveling.

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

I like dark subject matter. I'm not sure what that means about me!

I think the mythology of death really ran away with me when I was very young.

For me it was a lot harder to come to terms with the death of my grandfather than it was to come to terms with what's happened to the former Yugoslavia.

My road to publishing actually came through a colleague who connected me to my agent, and the faculty at Cornell was very supportive.