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There's always a line outside Ginjer Buchanan's office. In order to snag this interview I had to wait next to a disgruntled werewolf detective and two interstellar pilots while Ginjer discussed business with someone within. It turned out to be a knight in black armor, who emerged with helmet bowed as he examined his contract. Seizing the moment, I slipped in ahead of the others and managed to conduct a quick interview before the werewolf battered down the door:

Hi, sorry to sneak in here unannounced. Could you tell us a little about yourself—how you came to enter publishing, and to your current position? How long have you had an interest in fantasy and science-fiction, and due to which books in particular?

Publishing was my mid-life career change. Prior to 1984, I was a social worker. I have an MSW and my undergrad degree is in psychology. But I had always been an avid reader, in general, and in specific of fantastical literature.

I’m from Pittsburgh, which has the best free library system in the country (thanks to Andrew Carnagie). Every week I would check out my allotted number of books, read them and return them for a new batch the next week! Authors I particularly enjoyed were CS Lewis, E Nesbitt, and PL Travers (the Mary Poppins book). I adored the American fantasist Edward Eager and, in a less fantastical vein, Walter Farley's Black Stallion and Island Stallion series. I also discovered one of the lesser known Stratemeyer series (the publishers of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys)--Rick Brandt’s Scientific Adventures. I think that the first book I actually owned was a Rick Brandt.

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You can probably name a few novelists or artists whom you call smart confidantes or friends. You draw on their writing for guidance at difficult crossroads--for sympathy or advice. After all, literature isn't only valuable because it's entertainment, but because it delivers memorable insight about life outside the book. We know more about love because of Shakespeare, about jealousy because of Tolstoy, about self-esteem because of Charlotte Bronte. Literature moves us for what it says about events outside of their plots.

My book, A Life of One's Own: A Guide to Better Living through the Work and Wisdom of Virginia Woolf, finds everyday wisdom in a novelist who tends to intimidate a lot of people (some call Woolf terribly obscure; some say she's too brooding, too heady). But Woolf was a genius in her ability to record the human heart. In her novels and diaries, she described what it's like to ride through the highs and lows of a mood--or to have a conversation, to feel longing as another person speaks. My book describes the insight she delivered about friendships, ambitions, and careers.

Ever since I pitched this book, I've been faced with the Big Question: "How can we learn about ‘the good life' from a woman who killed herself?" Virginia Woolf did commit suicide in 1941, partly as a response to World War Two, and partly because of biology. Hitler had started bombing London, and so Woolf grew increasingly pessimistic about humanity; she also suffered from what we retroactively diagnose as bipolar disorder. (The diagnosis wasn't defined during her lifetime.)