The first generation of Russian terrorists came out of the '60s counterculture - the 1860s in Russia bearing a striking similarity to the 1960s in the United States, with Russian students growing their hair, following gurus who extolled the 'new man,' and starting communes.

The first time I dedicated myself to resurrecting and preserving somebody's memories was with my great-uncle. I knew he was going to die in the next few years, and I had grown up listening to all his stories about people who had been trapped or chased by the Nazis. I began to record them.

The Dumas memoirs - which I also discovered when I was a kid - had a big impact on me.

The demons you have are what motivate you to make your art. This is what drives the detective, this is what drives the painter, this is what drives the writer: a conflicting urge to forget pain and at the same time remember it and fight for some kind of justice. I know these powerful things are inside of me and everyone in some way or another.

I did not win and in fact I was called into the principal's office for a consultation with my parents. But that was the beginning of my literary career.

I work in the tech industry and my husband works in biotech. He's head of IP for a company listed on the NASDAQ. And we have a lot of discussions in tech and biotech about the role of unionization in our industries.

One of the things you get to do as a writer is that you get to learn new stuff all the time, and I hope that I'm a better writer when I'm 70 than I was when I was 30. That's one of the great things about a literary career.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let's unify; let's show more love.