Chris Pavone

Expats are a self-selecting group of outgoing, confident people - if you're not those things, you probably don't choose this adventure - and the lifestyle is very conducive to making fast, close friends. ”

I always wanted to write. But honestly I'm glad I didn't do it back when I was twenty-five or so, when it's now clear to me that I was a very poor writer and could've ruined my career before it even started. ”

I'd had 12 different job titles in publishing before I typed 'The End' at the bottom of a manuscript page. I thought the manuscript was in great shape; I was pretty proud of myself. Then I sent it to some publishing friends, and they tore it apart. ”

Before I wrote my first novel, 'The Expats,' I spent nearly two decades at various arms of publishing houses such as Random House, Workman, and HarperCollins, mostly as an acquisitions editor. But a more accurate title for that job might be rejection editor: while I acquired maybe a dozen projects per year, I'd reject hundreds upon hundreds. ”

Writing is a solitary occupation; we don't really have any colleagues. ”

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was a copy editor at Doubleday, and for a brief period, it was my job to help shepherd Pat Conroy's 'Beach Music' into the world. ”

After years of working on books, I eventually took a more business-oriented job, for the same sorts of reasons that most people take most new jobs: fancier title, higher pay, opportunities for advancement. ”

Any setting can be a good setting for a novel. ”

I had been very dismissive of popular fiction - in fact, I'd refused to read it. And then I started working on popular fiction, and I realised these books weren't the same as Hemingway, say, but they were good in a different way. ”

I'd sometimes go to Paris by myself - it was an easy two-hour train ride - to get a break from the everyday grind, to walk around a big city, ride a subway, feel the energy of a world capital. ”