'The Book of Air and Shadows' was born during a conference with an intellectual property lawyer on a particular afternoon in November of 2003.

But there's the paradox of fiction - why do you cry when a fake character dies? It's the basis of art. You engage with people who don't exist and care about them as you would your friends and relatives.

I don't like outlining, because books are organic things. Sometimes a book doesn't want to be written in a certain way.

I just think I'm better equipped to make a study of human personality than trying to get into the mind of animals.

I tend not to think about the reading public at all, or the business, when I'm writing.

I think there is just a vein of humanity that really loves animals and really loves to read about them.

You work hard on a book and throw it out there and then it's beyond your control.

Gorillas are in danger of being wiped out by the Ebola virus. I feel like we have limited time to get to know them and understand them and they're going to disappear - that's terrifically sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could stop that?

I just don't think I've had the desire yet to write a vicious animal - like a dog-gone-bad or anything - where I do feel that I need a balance of all types of humans.

It seems natural to surround my fictional world with animals because my reality is full of them. When I'm sitting there conceiving a story, they just pop up.