Writer

There's a tendency among some male writers to make the women in their stories weak and needing of rescue so that their hero looks like a manly man.

I'm over the word 'like' in conversation, and 'you know' seems to be the placeholder of choice, but when I'm writing dialogue, I tend to use those phrases because that's how people talk.

I taped the autopsy photos from Marilyn Monroe's death to my lunch box in fifth grade, and I would write stories in which someone inevitably died.

My books are never about the crimes. They are about how the characters react to the crimes.

The familiar trope of the woman in peril doesn't really interest me.

When you write as a woman, there's this feeling there's going to be a softness.

Though he was not a reader himself, my father understood that reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.

My sister is dyslexic, and she's so smart, so intelligent in all of the ways that matter.

Equal access to reading is fundamental to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I grew up reading thrillers. Honestly, I was always drawn to the very detailed ones like Patricia Cornwell. I love details.

I started Save the Libraries in 2010 by hosting a big fundraiser in my city library of DeKalb County in Atlanta. Through that, I learned that even with fundraisers, libraries often don't make money - they just barely break even.

Women can be two different people - one person at home, another at work.

Good writers know that crime is an entre into telling a greater story about character. Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

Graphic novels let you take risks that just wouldn't fly in the conventional book form.

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.

Visual storytelling is at once immediate and subversive.

Even 'Gone With the Wind' had a shocking, cold-blooded murder.

Flannery O'Connor was a revelation for me. When I read her, I was very young, and I didn't understand what she was doing. I didn't see the - any of the Catholicism or any of the social stuff.

It's a very Southern thing to be interested in dark stuff.

I always wanted to be a writer. In the beginning, I thought I had to rewrite 'Gone with the Wind,' but eventually, I found my way and realized that wasn't me.