(Who is your favorite novelist of all time? And your favorite novelist writing today?) All time — Emily Brontë, author of the greatest psychological … - Alice Hoffman

For me—as I think it is for a lot of women and girls—I felt that they were figures that had power, and I felt very powerless," she said. "It was just very exciting and thrilling to think of a witch who didn't care if she was portrayed as ugly—which of course, I felt like I was—or not beautiful enough or whatever, but still had power and didn't need to be rescued.

For me—and I think for most writers—you're a reader first and then it just happens. You so love it that you want to be part of it, and you start writing.

I've always tried to go directly from sleep to the computer, before I have the time to start censoring myself. I like to get up at 5:00. I do my best work early in the morning before the world's awake. For the kind of fiction I write, which is emotional fiction, you have to let go. Let the walls down, the defenses down. Don't worry about what people are going to think.