I spend a good deal of time just in solitude. I’ve always favored studies with a window that looks out into a back lawn, or into some trees, or a garden…. For an enchanted time, I had a window on the 24th floor of an apartment building near NYU, and this was a truly magical interlude, enshrined in the concluding chapters of my next novel, A Book of American Martyrs. A good deal of my imagining time is spent on my feet, however, since I like to walk quickly, and I like to run, whenever possible. Writing isn’t really meant to be a sedentary art, I think. Being in motion is stimulating to the soul.

JOYCE CAROL OATES