Aimee Bender

There's a spectrum of those moments of connection and the moments we fail to connect, going from super-large successes to failures. Success would be love, I guess, and failure could still be love, but the bad side; and loss. ”

I love all the arts - so museums, theatre, music, walks near trees or by the ocean, time with people, psychological readings. ”

I'm obsessed with adolescence. I love to write about people in their 20s. It's such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time. ”

Granted, I'm someone who loves words. I've always loved poetry - so it's suited to me. ”

I love food. I'm not a great cook, but I love to cook, and I like how different it is from writing. ”

Some creative writing programs seem evil, but my experience at Irvine was totally the opposite, where I feel like they were really good at focusing in on each writers voice and setting. When I felt like I was obligated to write a story that was more typical, no one really liked it. ”

Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can access the emotional life of the character. ”

Writing can be a frightening, distressing business, and whatever kind of structure or buffer is available can help a lot. ”

I write on a very strict 2-hour-a-day schedule, and I really respond to structure and invented rules. So even if I'm finding out good information on a character, I will stop when I'm set to stop. ”

For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing. ”