I laughed a lot in places but also cried a lot. Edgewise is pretty gut-wrenching at times. Is that the kind of book you set out to write?
I don’t know that I set out thinking that I want people to cry, but it delights me when they do because I feel like I’ve done my job. If a book moves people, it means they can believe in the story and care what happens to the characters. I love to read books that move me, whether it’s to laughter or tears. So if I’ve created an emotional experience for readers, I’m pleased.

What inspired you to write this book?
I wanted to tell the story of two very different women from contrasting racial, economic and educational backgrounds, to explore the possibility of their becoming friends and what that might entail. I also wanted to offer hope to people who were going through crises in their own lives that maybe they could work them through and come out the other side.

How autobiographical is this story?
Like Simone, I was self-destructive and attended an outpatient psychiatric hospital similar to the one in the book. Also like Simone, when I first went I was aghast. I called the therapist who had referred me to ask why on earth she had sent me to a place where most of the other patients were uneducated and severely depressed or troubled in other ways. I didn’t think they would be able to offer much insight in group processes. My therapist requested that I check it out for a week. I soon realized how much we all had in common. Contrary to my initial expectations, I got a lot of feedback and insight from other people about my own issues. I’m embarrassed when I look back on it to think that despite teaching minorities and living in Africa and voting on the left, I still had such a glaring misconception. For all its autobiographical components, though, I do want to stress that this is a work of fiction.

The treatment you got helped you?
Yes, I’m doing remarkably well. Luckily, the hospital offered the kind of program that I think a lot of people in crisis would benefit from.

What advice would you give to people who are battling their own self-destructive tendencies?
Get help. Don’t try to do it on your own. Communicate with the people you are close to, but get professional help. Don’t try to just tough it out. Also, remember the saying, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem; that got me through some dark days. Even in the midst of severe depression, there were moments when I felt happy to be alive. I think it’s easier to have those happy moments if you’re not dealing with your problems on your own.

Did you figure out the characters early on in the process?
Satch came easiest for me. I was always concerned that she was the more interesting character. I had to really work on Simone to try to make her a little funnier and more sympathetic to other people so she could hopefully stand up to Satch on a page and not get submerged. I have to say, while I share Simone’s central dynamics, I wish I were as on-the-spot funny as Satch.

Do people like one woman better than the other?
I think a lot of people enjoy Satch’s sense of humor and her frankness. Simone at the beginning is in such denial some people want to slap her. Miss Cheerful. Just like Satch, they want to slap her.

Do you think it’s realistic for a white middle class teacher to become close friends with a working class black woman?
I think it’s difficult. I don’t think it’s an easy friendship. And I think that if either Simone or Satch had a stronger support network, their friendship would be less likely. To me it’s believable that Simone and Satch remain friends, but I don’t think it’s typical. Race, economics and education are all big gaps, but Simone and Satch have a lot in common in terms of their psychologies. I believe that commonality would transcend their differences, and I like to think that that kind of transcendence is possible for all of us.

There are some great minor characters in this book, Marvin being one of them. Did you ever know someone like Marvin? Or Regina?
The characters are composites of people I’ve met along the way. None of them is a real person.

At the beginning Satch places a bet that Simone won’t return to Oakhill. What prompted that scene?
After I got my M.A., I took a job teaching in an inner-city school in Kansas City. The courts had mandated integration of the faculty. I was the sixth teacher they’d had in four months. When I was waiting in the office to talk to the principal, one of the secretaries, I was told later, made a bet that I wouldn’t last the week. She lost. I loved teaching in that school and stayed until I decided to move to California to pursue screenwriting.

Is that experience what caught your interest in racial issues?
No, I’d say the Civil Rights Movement first hooked my interest. So did teaching school in Kenya, which gave me the experience of being in the minority and of being the target of racism, though it was a very different monster than in this country. In Kenya, at least in our area, whites were considered automatically superior, not inferior. That made it easier than the black experience in America has traditionally been. Still, there were real frustrations arising from that assumption of superiority. For instance, if we went to a village wedding, even of people we didn’t know, we were placed at the head table on display rather than being able to relax and visit with students and friends. I don’t begin to think I know what the assumption of inferiority would be like, but I do have some experience of what it’s like to be judged solely on the basis of skin color.

As a Caucasian writer, was it difficult to write the dialogue of black characters?
I’ve had a lot of contact with black Americans, and I got help from a black teacher, Jeff Mayfield, and my sister-in-law’s mother, Edora Stell, with the dialect.

Have you read any books that have to do with experiences in a mental hospital, or is Edgewise unique as far as you know?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one of my favorite novels, is set in an inpatient hospital that is quite different from Oakhill, as is the memoir Girl, Interrupted. I haven’t read a novel set in a program like Oakhill, nor have I read one where the racial component is a vital part of the story.

Do you think people will welcome a book that details the therapeutic process?
I hope so because I believe it will help other people understand the process and what it can offer, for themselves or for other people they might know who are in need of help. There’s a lot of emphasis now on cognitive therapy, and for some people that’s helpful, but other people need to be able to process through talk therapy and drama therapy in the way that patients do at Oakhill.

The novel deals in part with cutting, yet Simone is forty. Aren’t most cutters teenagers?
I don’t know the numbers, but from my own experience and the lives of other adult cutters I met in therapy, I do know that this behavior is not limited to teens. Adults who cut often have a history of some form of sexual abuse and a heavy sense of guilt stemming from some crucial relationship/s in their lives. Most often that guilt is unwarranted, but for most people it takes help to realize that. I’ve provided links on a separate page for people seeking information or assistance in dealing with self-injury.

Simone’s response to her rapist is not what we would expect. Why?
Simone had a very lonely childhood. She craved love. She also craved a husband and children. Spence seemed like her last hope. Throughout her life she had constantly forgiven people who violated her boundaries, and that also plays a role.

On the boundary issue, it seems like Simone and Jun, one of the therapists, skirt the line of what is appropriate behavior between a therapist and a patient. Were you trying to explore that?
I do think that Jun goes a little over the line at times. He’s well intentioned, but he’s new to the field. Simone’s eventual realizations around that issue are crucial to her recovery.

The book deals in part with budget cuts. Do you see this as a problem around the country?
Certainly in California it’s a huge problem. And it seems like whenever governments need to cut funding, it’s usually programs for the poor that are affected. The hospital I attended no longer exists, and I see it as a huge problem because as Marvin says, the poor are voiceless. Look at Hurricane Katrina.

Did you always write novels?
No, I published several articles and wrote screenplays. Three were optioned, but nothing was ever produced. I ultimately decided that some of the best part of the screenplay was in stage directions. And screenplays are written to be seen. I wanted to write something to be read. Also, you have more control over a novel than you do over a screenplay.

How many years did you work on this book?
On and off for about eleven. I wrote another novel while I was doing this one. I stopped revising Edgewise for a while and then went back to it.

What is your writing process and what rules would you recommend writers follow?
I usually write between four and five hours a day if I’m actively writing a draft. If I’m researching or brainstorming I can go seven hours or more. I work five or six days a week. I don’t set daily page goals. Some days I might write five or six pages, but other days I might labor over a paragraph. I usually do a lot of revisions. I think everybody’s writing process needs to work for them. There’s no way one to do it. For instance, some writers advocate writing seven days a week, but I need a day or two off to regenerate. I think it’s misguided to set rules about writing. Do what works for you.

Are you in a writing group?
I’m in two groups. Two of the people in one group, Madelon Phillips and Mike Karpa, and I have been together for eighteen years, which is scary. In that group we e-mail pages and critique them in advance then get together once a month for discussion. It’s a good method for in-depth analysis of the writing. In my second group we read pages on the spot. I like getting to hear people’s reactions: chuckles, intakes of breath. It’s a good gauge of the effectiveness or lack of it of particular passages. The two approaches have really had a huge role in shaping my writing.

Who are your favorite writers and why?
I love Wally Lamb, Jane Hamilton, Ann Patchett, Alice McDermott. Elizabeth Berg and a lot of other writers. They all have extremely well realized characters who drive their stories. Alice McDermott has a stunning use of detail that I admire and cannot emulate.

What are the titles of a few of your favorite books?
She’s Come Undone, Bastard Out of Carolina, Child of My Heart, The Accidental Tourist, The Book of Joe, Water for Elephants, Open House, Bel Canto, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Lovely Bones, The Book of Ruth, Crazy in Alabama. I’m always discovering new favorites.

Can we look forward to another novel? What are you working on now?
I’m just beginning a novel set in the Ozarks, which is a hallowed place for me. Since I learned so much shaping and revising Edgewise, I’m hoping the process will be much faster this time. But I try to hold on to the message of the song “Greyhound” by the late Harry Chapin: what matters is the going, not the getting there. So far with writing, I’m really enjoying the journey.