SARAH ADDISON ALLEN

Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I'm a work in progress.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

I love that my dad has stopped asking me when I'm going to get a real job.

There's an old hymn called 'How Can I Keep from Singing?' That's what writing feels like to me. I have to write. It's intrinsic to who I am. So it was a natural choice for me to try to pursue writing as a career. Truthfully, though, I still daydream about how fun it would be to ride on the back of a garbage truck.

I'm a huge fan of Alice Hoffman, Fred Chappell and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

I'm a classic stress-eater, so I know a lot about how eating can become a way of hiding from what's really wrong. I escape into food. But some people escape into books. Some into relationships that might not be good for them. The three main characters in 'The Sugar Queen' struggle with each of these comforts-turned-crutches.

At any given time I'm listening to the Cory Branan, Leonna Naess, Eve 6, the King's Noyse, Sean Paul, Green Day, the BoDeans, Buddy Holly, Nowell Sing We Clear... the list goes on and on. But I rarely listen to music while I write. I start typing the lyrics.

Magical realism is a blending of the unusual or supernatural into an otherwise ordinary setting. And, to me, this perfectly describes the South. 'The Sugar Queen' involves a lot of magical happenings, but in a very down-home Southern setting. It's full of things that could almost be true.

I think my characters are more wish fulfillments than they are mirrors. They see things I don't and live in a world I can only enter through words.

The thing most consistently on my desk as I write is a cat - a different one at different times of the day. I think I'm more a part of their ritual.

My favorite books are the ones that make me smile for hours after reading them. I want that for my readers, for the sweetness to linger. Sort of like chocolate, but without the calories.

Doctors say there's no such thing as chemo brain, but ask any chemo patient.

Don't give up because of the dark days. Succeed in spite of them. The dark days make the bright days seem even brighter. So bright you can hardly stand it.

Cancer is too real, and too awful, and I can't make it good or magical. I couldn't even read a book where a character had cancer, for a while... But now I've reached a point where I don't think about cancer nonstop anymore, and sometimes I worry about that - I'm going to forget what I went through; I'm going to forget how horrible it was.

Whenever I would get too nosy as a child, my grandmother would say, "When you learn someone else's secret, your own secrets aren't safe. Dig up one, release them all.

She looked like autumn, when leaves turned and fruit ripened.

You are who you are, whether you like it or not, so why not like it?

There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over their less beautiful daughters.

That, they knew, was true friendship. And they knew, if you're lucky enough to find it, you hold on to it.

When your cup is empty, you do not mourn what is gone. Because if you do, you will miss the opportunity to fill it again.

She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.

Because he knew the best way to get what he wanted was to break down what made us strongest. And our friendships were what made us strong.

It was early evening when they walked outside, the sky the color of pink lemonade.

But one thing she [Rachel] did believe in was love. She believed that you could smell it, that you could taste it, that it could change the entire course of your life.

Being left makes you doubt your ability to keep people, even friends.