Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of two collections of short stories, Black Tickets (1975) and Fast Lanes (1987, 2000). She has also written three novels; Machine Dreams (1984), Shelter (1994) and most recently MotherKind (2000). She is currently working on a new novel to be published in 2004. Sarah Robertson is currently working on the writings of Jayne Anne Phillips for her doctoral thesis at Keele University. She has written a conference paper on Shelter (1994) and is presently working on Fast Lanes (1987, 2000). The interview arose from the American Mourning Conference held at Keele in May 2001.