Jennifer McMahon

“She closed her eyes. Said the four most comforting words she knew: "Once upon a time." An incantation.”

“All my life, I had this idea that if I could unravel the mystery that was my mother, then I could help save her. But it didn't really work. We were close, but she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, and it was rough at times.”

“People often ask if my books should be read in any particular order, but they're all standalone novels, so picking up any one of them would be fine.”

“I graduated with a B.A. from Goddard College in 1991 and then studied poetry for a year in the M.F.A. in Writing Program at Vermont College.”

“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?”

“One exercise I always do when I'm getting to know a character is ask her to tell me her secrets. Sit down with a pen and paper, and start with, 'I never told anybody...' and go from there, writing in the voice of your character.”

“I believed then - in a deep, easy way that is impossible for me as an adult - that there was more to this world than meets the eye. Trees had spirits; the wind spoke. If you followed a toad or a raven deep into the heart of the forest, they were sure to lead you to something magical.”

“Although in my life the level of loss has never reached the extremes it does in 'The Winter People,' I certainly can identify with being both a daughter longing for her mother and being a mother who is almost scared by the intensity of her love for her daughter.”

“Poetry taught me a great deal about language and images, but when it came to plotting, I was stumped. It's been very much a learn-by-doing thing for me.”

“I have a pretty open mind about supernatural stuff - I do believe that there's more to this world than what meets the eye.”

“I wrote my first short story in third grade.”

“I do believe in ghosts, or at least in some kind of persistent spiritual echoes of the past in certain places.”

“Some things, I think, like fairy books and secret doors, are only meant to be found by children.”

“Sometimes what a person needs most is to be forgiven.”

“Over the years, I have been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, Easter Bunny, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and counselor for adults and kids with mental illness - I quit my last real job in 2000 to work on writing full-time.”

“I absolutely love writing about the things that scare me, the things that keep me up at night. I don't quite know why. Perhaps because so many things do scare me, and this is my subconscious way of trying to exercise some control over things that go bump in the night!”

“My mother taught me to believe in ghosts: to use a Ouija board, have seances, and leave little offerings out for those who have passed.”

“I think of setting as almost a character of its own, influencing the other characters in ways they're not even aware of. So much of the success of a good ghost story rides on creating a creepy atmosphere; details of the landscape itself can help create a sense of dread.”

“What if things happened to you—special, magic things—because you’d been preparing for them?”

“I was born in 1968 and grew up in my grandmother's house in suburban Connecticut, where I was convinced a ghost named Virgil lived in the attic.”