This actually ran much earlier last week on Gamasutra, but I realized it wasn't cross-linked a lot of places and is rather GSW-ish, so wanted to point out Jim Munroe's interview with text adventure author Emily Short.

Well, Short has been an important part of interactive fiction for some time now - actually, her Wikipedia page sums it up well: "Emily Short is the pseudonym of an interactive fiction (IF) writer, perhaps best known for her debut game Galatea and her use of psychologically complex NPCs, or non-player game characters."

Particularly referenced in the interview is Savoir Faire, "...about a magician in 18th-century France searching his aristocratic adoptive father's house." Talking about pacing IF, she explains: "The game should stay fun for as long as it takes to play; no aspect should take more of the player's attention than it deserves. What that means in practical terms will vary a lot from one work to the next. In Savoir-Faire I mostly thought in terms of puzzles and their rewards." Lots more good stuff in there.