Cassie McCullagh

I just have really high standards of quality.

If I find a book is annoying me with its prose, I'll put it down.

You know, life is too short and there are way more books in the world than I'm ever going to have time to finish.

So I think I made that decision maybe when I turned 40.

There was a time when I felt I have to give the author a chance, you know.

But then I reached a point when I said, no, I don't.

I mean, someone else will probably love this book, but it's not for me.

So I will put down books and not finish them.

I mean, I'll certainly give them 50 pages to be sure.

I would like others to extend me the same courtesy.

50 pages.

If you don't love it by 50, put it down.

But I think my reading has always...

Well, my reading has always shaped my writing because that's how I learned to be a writer.

As I said, I studied science, I studied biology in university and even in graduate school because I didn't have the faintest hope that I'd be able to support myself as a writer.

But I always read, and I read short stories a lot in my 20s.

And I think short stories are...

probably the most difficult form of fiction.

It's funny that I don't know about here, but in the US, short stories are not widely read.

Your publisher, when you say you want to do a book of short stories, your publisher probably goes, oh, because they just don't sell as well as novels.