The North Korean landscape is strikingly beautiful in places. It could be said to resemble America's Pacific Northwest - but substantially drained of color.

For a North Korean watcher, seeing 'The Interview' is like seeing an earnest endeavor reflected back through a freak-show mirror.

Since 2009, 140 Tibetans have immolated themselves to protest Chinese policies that limit their freedom of movement, speech and religion, especially their right to venerate the Dalai Lama.

Gonpo Tso was born a princess. As a young woman, she dressed in fur-trimmed robes with fat ropes of coral beads strung around her neck. She lived in an adobe castle on the edge of the Tibetan plateau with a reception room large enough to accommodate the thousand Buddhist monks who once paid tribute to her father.

I don't look at negative comments because my parents and family don't let me. My big sister controls my Instagram, and my big brother controls my Twitter. I also don't really Google myself or anything like that.

As enjoyable as it is when you're just writing and getting feedback from family members, it's 10 times more enjoyable, or 100 times more enjoyable, when you actually start getting paid for it, and people start reading your books, and once in a while you get a good review.

Everyone says my family are so lucky to be surrounded by so many sweet treats, but to be honest, the novelty has worn off for the kids.

I think the art world is one of the last bastions of this kind of sexism where there is a mythology about a woman not being able to be both and artist and a mother: that some very important creative crystal inside a woman would be shattered by the idea of having a child.