Jennifer Egan just took home a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. But first, she spoke with us.
Egan talked to TIME’s Nathan Thornburgh, who, as it turns out, went to the same high school as Egan — the school she mentions in the book, which was named one of TIME’s best novels of 2010. The book is a combination of a long-form novel and a collection of short stories, and follows the story of a music producer and his assistant.
In their conversation, Egan talks about the line between her fiction and nonfiction writing, portraying parenthood and how her next project will be a creative stretch.
(More on TIME.com: See the 100 best novels of all-TIME)