In a Nutshell

"Writing novels is an exciting and challenging and somewhat surreal job whose cyclical nature causes an enforced manic-depression. After months or years of interior, self-doubting, tunnel-visioned, antisocial, obsessive labor, a kind of low-level bottom-feeding life in a parallel world of your own invention, comes the bright light of publication, if you’re lucky."

--Kate Christensen, who just won the PEN/Faulkner award for The Great Man , in an interview on Critical Mass .