Gillian Jacobs

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.

It has taken me a long time to work out the function of ex-boyfriends, at least for me: how they can help you work out what you want from life and from a partner by showing you what you don't. If a man is your ex, it's better all round if he was not Mr. Right.