India, Feb. 8 -- Please tell us about the narratives that make up Openings? Were there any thematic strands that bring the collection together?

That's a really good question. And interestingly, my first collection, Multitudes, was very much Belfast girlhood and young womanhood. My second collection, Intimacies, was motherhood. And when it came to writing the stories in Openings, I found I had greater technical abilities. I had greater range. There's one story set in Berlin; there's one story set in Morocco; there's one story set in the London Blitz. And I was thinking, "What is it that ties these stories together?" Because I could feel it. I could sense it. But I didn't know consciously. When I finished the collection and put the stories...