Ruth Ozeki

"We’re afraid of saying the word “suicide” and talking about it. Certainly the word suicide has a kind of energy that is frightening, and people can be afraid of talking about it. Why is it that we for…"

"I lived most of my life feeling like an outsider. I remember in second grade being bullied, taunted and beaten up. I am bicultural, biracial – my mother is Japanese and my father is caucasian. I grew …"

"All through my childhood, I wanted to be a novelist. I stopped writing at various points because I would get frustrated because there were things I didn’t know how to do. I didn’t know how to move a s…"

"As a writer you wait around for inspiration; this book is about what happens when a character taps a writer on the shoulder and calls her into being; it's about the character creating a novelist."