Susan Shreve

As a child, I was an observer, a listener for the stories of grown-ups. I led a quiet, solitary life with my mother, interrupted in the evenings by the arrival of my father who preferred to live in a state of emergency.

As the writer of a pseudonymous book, I gave up my own accumulated history as a novelist and became what I had been as a child: unnamed, unidentified, unacknowledged. Invisible. In a very real sense, what I hope for in the process of imagining a book is to disappear.

Embrace yourself and do what you can to look and feel your best. Don't put on so many fashion trends that create a ridiculous style statement. Pick and choose what feels good, and flatters your own body.