CATHY MARIE BUCHANAN

Growing up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, I took classes as a young girl and became very serious about ballet, and also performed with a local company, although it wasn't a professional company.

I don't wait for inspiration. I get up and write every day.

Christina Baker Kline writes exquisitely about two unlikely friends—one, a 91-year-old survivor of the grinding poverty of rural Ireland, immigrant New York and the hardscrabble Midwest; and the other, a casualty of a string of foster homes—each struggling to transcend a past of isolation and hardship. Orphan Train will hold you in its grip as their fascinating tales unfold.

A tour of the Mexico City of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo led by Barbara Kingsolver would be nice. And I certainly wouldn't turn down a tour of Johannes Vermeer's Delft led by Tracey Chevalier.

I write to explore something that fascinates me, and I write the way I do because it is the only way I know how to write.

I'm very comfortable with tweeting, I have a very active author Facebook page, I Skype book clubs all over the world.

Just when you think you’ve got Arranged figured out, time and again Catherine McKenzie delivers the flawless, unexpected twist that keeps you glued to the book.

I keep writing because it is deeply pleasurable to me.

Edgar Degas's famous sculpture, 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,' served as my muse for 'The Painted Girls.' I came upon a television documentary on the work, and as someone who held the sculpture in high esteem and who largely considered ballet to be the high-minded pursuit of privileged young girls, I was struck by what I would learn.

I really became convinced I wanted to tell the story of the real-life model for the Degas sculpture 'Little Dancer Aged 14,' which was unveiled in 1881, the Belle Epoque.

I write to explore something that fascinates me, and I write the way I do because it is the only way I know how to write.

Edgar Degas's famous sculpture, 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,' served as my muse for 'The Painted Girls.' I came upon a television documentary on the work, and as someone who held the sculpture in high esteem and who largely considered ballet to be the high-minded pursuit of privileged young girls, I was struck by what I would learn.

I don't wait for inspiration. I get up and write every day.

I'm very comfortable with tweeting, I have a very active author Facebook page, I Skype book clubs all over the world.

I really became convinced I wanted to tell the story of the real-life model for the Degas sculpture 'Little Dancer Aged 14,' which was unveiled in 1881, the Belle Epoque.

I keep writing because it is deeply pleasurable to me.

It breaks my heart that we are always being nudged toward the most recently published books, when so many worthy books have gone unexplored.

Growing up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, I took classes as a young girl and became very serious about ballet, and also performed with a local company, although it wasn't a professional company.

I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.

A tour of the Mexico City of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo led by Barbara Kingsolver would be nice. And I certainly wouldn't turn down a tour of Johannes Vermeer's Delft led by Tracey Chevalier.

Just when you think you’ve got Arranged figured out, time and again Catherine McKenzie delivers the flawless, unexpected twist that keeps you glued to the book.

Christina Baker Kline writes exquisitely about two unlikely friends—one, a 91-year-old survivor of the grinding poverty of rural Ireland, immigrant New York and the hardscrabble Midwest; and the other, a casualty of a string of foster homes—each struggling to transcend a past of isolation and hardship. Orphan Train will hold you in its grip as their fascinating tales unfold.