“A tour of the Mexico City of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo led by Barbara Kingsolver would be nice. And I certainly wouldn't turn down a tour of Johannes Vermeer's Delft led by Tracey Chevalier.”

“Edgar Degas's famous sculpture, 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,' served as my muse for 'The Painted Girls.' I came upon a television documentary on the work, and as someone who held the sculpture in high esteem and who largely considered ballet to be the high-minded pursuit of privileged young girls, I was struck by what I would learn.”

“Growing up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, I took classes as a young girl and became very serious about ballet, and also performed with a local company, although it wasn't a professional company.”

“I don't wait for inspiration. I get up and write every day.”

“I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.”

“I keep writing because it is deeply pleasurable to me.”

“I really became convinced I wanted to tell the story of the real-life model for the Degas sculpture 'Little Dancer Aged 14,' which was unveiled in 1881, the Belle Epoque.”

“I write to explore something that fascinates me, and I write the way I do because it is the only way I know how to write.”

“I'm very comfortable with tweeting, I have a very active author Facebook page, I Skype book clubs all over the world.”

“It breaks my heart that we are always being nudged toward the most recently published books, when so many worthy books have gone unexplored.”