STEVEN AMSTERDAM

I used to do jacket design, and I'm very conscious of covers, and probably meddle more than other authors would.

Nursing demands vigilance about people. The sights and smells that a patient offers, their movements and their offhand comments all contribute crucial information to understanding what they need. Training and experience heighten one's ability to see what needs to be seen.

The better we are at accepting the limits of our world, the more easily we can embrace what we have.

I could imagine that a character could do almost anything at any time, and that was the freedom of the whole thing. But keeping track of what was plausible for certain characters [was the challenge].

Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.

A story is built on characters and reasons.

Until I became a nurse, no one had ever asked me to sign a book contract. I had been writing for decades, read thousands of books, and even worked in publishing for 10 years. Who knew that nursing would be my break?

You walk into someone's house and they're dying, or they've got a family member who is dying. Your needs are minor; you're there to serve and to advise and to educate. You're not there to provide yourself.

I'm never going to write a whole paragraph describing what a living room looks like.

Being with a small publisher has been huge. They bat for me for everything.

Being with a small publisher has been huge. They bat for me for everything.

Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.

You walk into someone's house and they're dying, or they've got a family member who is dying. Your needs are minor; you're there to serve and to advise and to educate. You're not there to provide yourself.

Nursing demands vigilance about people. The sights and smells that a patient offers, their movements and their offhand comments all contribute crucial information to understanding what they need. Training and experience heighten one's ability to see what needs to be seen.

A story is built on characters and reasons.

Until I became a nurse, no one had ever asked me to sign a book contract. I had been writing for decades, read thousands of books, and even worked in publishing for 10 years. Who knew that nursing would be my break?

I'm never going to write a whole paragraph describing what a living room looks like.

I could imagine that a character could do almost anything at any time, and that was the freedom of the whole thing. But keeping track of what was plausible for certain characters [was the challenge].

I've always thought flight was fun and wanted to write about flight, and I knew a lot of househusbands who were having a really bad time with it. I thought flight might perk up a marriage here or there.

I used to do jacket design, and I'm very conscious of covers, and probably meddle more than other authors would.

The better we are at accepting the limits of our world, the more easily we can embrace what we have.