Lois Lowry @ Writer Unboxed.

From the interview:

Q: You were born in Hawaii, and spent a lot of time in New York, Pennsylvania and even Japan. How do you think these life experiences have influenced you as a writer and storyteller?

LL: It doesn’t matter where you live. The important thing is what you absorb from your surroundings. To be a keen observer….to see and ponder and weigh….to hear the cadence of speech and notice the shrugs and gestures and the way the eyebrows lift or the lip curls…to perceive human relationships and how they work (or don’t)….all of that is what makes a writer. You could live in the same small town for 50 years and have all of that available.

Read the whole thing -- or, well, the first part of two -- here.