I wouldn't trade my job as a novelist for any other job in the world. Writing is a refuge for me--a secret garden, a doorway into other lives, an occasion for expanding on the truth and getting paid for it (once every couple of years, at least).One life has never seemed like enough to me (maybe because I'm a Gemini?). Short of immortality or schizophrenia, fiction seemed to me to be the closest I could get to experiencing many lives from the inside-out.My books have also brought me into contact with people from all over the world I would never have met otherwise (including, most lately, my fiance!). I can only hope that readers will begin to understand how important they are to writers--and to literature itself! Buying books is an act of cultural affirmation. Literature--and writers--will perish without readers who are committed to buying, reading, and talking about books.