A biography for Chelsea Cainhasn’t been written yet.
“My husband and I were excited about having a kid - it was having a baby that had us worried. We had a lot to learn, so like good liberal arts graduates, we signed up for a class.”
“I'd lived in Portland on and off for a decade before I'd even heard of Vanport. It was this town of 20,000 people that washed away from north Portland.”
“I used to write travel essays, and I was struck by how the fact of writing about a place would change my relationship with it. I would make completely different choices, do things I wouldn't have normally, because I had to fill this narrative shape.”
“Gretchen Lowell was beautiful in a very grown-up way, in a sophisticated, confident way. It was more than beauty; it was the power of beauty. She radiated it.”
“I'm usually too shy to write on planes because I assume that everyone on board is as nosy as I am and will look over my shoulder and read what I'm writing.”
“I read a lot fewer thrillers than I think people assume I do.”
“No matter what fabulous place I visit, I don't feel like I'm on vacation unless I'm dehydrated and covered with sunscreen.”
“I felt like I'd culturally arrived when a character on the HBO show 'True Blood' was reading a hardback of 'Heartsick' at Sookie's kitchen table.”
“I think of it as the lasagna approach to writing because I'm always adding layers. I'll sometimes do it layer by layer, with dialogue, attribution, action, objects in the scene, setting... It can be sometimes that delineated.”
“There's not a lot of arc in an actual psychopath.”
“I have traveled a fair amount, and I have visited some great cities. I love architecture and museums and castles and ruins and central markets and even double-decker bus tours. But, I am a sucker for a tropical beach.”
“I love to write just about more than anything, but there are times I have to force myself to sit down and work. I want to play with my daughter or watch a movie with my husband or go outside on the nicest day of the year. But if writing is going to be your job, you have to treat it like a job.”
“Memory is a fiction we tell ourselves: just a piece of the truth.”
“I read a lot of 'Nancy Drew' books as a kid and considered myself a bit of an amateur detective.”
“As a seven-year-old, I remember when Etan Patz disappeared and was immortalized as the first missing-child face on a milk carton.”
“Don't let your characters tell you what to do. They can be pushy. Some writers say that they create characters and then just sort of follow them around through the narrative. I think that these writers are out of their minds.”
“Every year, I give my dad an advance copy of my latest book. He reads it over the next several nights and says something incredibly supportive. Then he clears his throat nervously and changes the subject.”
“I love the fact that we are surrounded by this spectacular natural beauty that routinely strikes us dead. Hikers walk off into the woods and are never seen again. And still we tug on our fleece and skip off into the wilderness, not a care in the world.”
“I am a control freak, but not when I travel. For some reason when I travel, I am able to surrender more than in my real life. I am able to let go. I think it's why I like it so much.”
“I guess people might be surprised to know I read comic books. I'm a Marvel girl, as opposed to DC.”