Katie asked Maggie Shipstead:

What inspires you to select your topics? Personal experience?

Maggie Shipstead Sometimes! Mostly it's just interest, wanting to get to the bottom of something. I grew up in California and didn't have any contact with WASP culture until I went to college in Massachusetts, and I was fascinated and puzzled by, you know, what preppy kids wore and what social codes people used to express wealth and status. That curiosity and "I don't get it" feeling is what eventually led me to write Seating Arrangements. And, with Astonish Me, I've always loved ballet and been intrigued by the lives of dancers. There's something so dramatic about the hierarchies of dance companies and how short (and vulnerable) dancers' careers often are and how they lead these very disciplined, physical lives. Once I started writing, I worked in other long-standing interests of mine, like Cold War defections and Orange County (where I grew up) and even the weirdness of Disneyland. Writing a novel takes so much time and thought--I couldn't possibly do it if I was intrigued by the subject I was digging into.

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