[THEME MUSIC]
-Theme, for me, always has to emerge. I start out with a character who I might not even like very much, but begin to worry about. And the deeper and deep- as I'm working with this character, and sort of figuring out his or her story, I get to deeper and deeper levels of caring and worrying about them. I know that I'm on to something when I wake up at three in the morning worrying about this sort of imagined person. -And so as the char-- and I always write in first person. So, my characters are always telling their own stories. Sometimes reliably, sometimes not. But theme emerges from that material. Now, I have had occasion to sit down on classes where people are analyzing my fiction, and I tend to feel that we all filter what we read through our own lives, and our own experiences. And so, I think that's perfectly OK, if somebody wants to see something I didn't necessarily intend, because, really, I'm sort of figuring it out myself as I go along. -But, I think, probably, now having written three novels, I see that, probably, my overall-- my overarching theme is the theme of people who are alienated, sometimes abandoned, but are longing for connection. So, a lot of people ask me am I like my character's. And a lot of people assume that I'm like my character's. And, sometimes, when people meet me after they've read my books, there's sort of surprised that I'm not so much like these set of angry, resentful people. But, what I share with my fictional characters, I think, is that we are imperfect people trying to become better people.