Leïla Benhamou

I wrote my first story in the margins of my mother's cookbook because it was the only paper I could find. Years later, I still write around other things: work shifts, overheard conversations, family phone calls, the city outside my Rosemont window.

At these evenings I read from the novel I haven't finished. You get the real draft—awkward sentences, missing chapters and all—then we argue about what the characters should do. I don't promise to take your suggestion, but I have rewritten an ending because of a stranger on my sofa.

I collect beautiful notebooks and write exclusively on ugly yellow legal pads.