The secret subversive goal of my work is to show that women, not just lesbians, are regular human beings.

I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture.

Bechdel Test, was named for the comic strip it came from, penned by Alison Bechdel - but Bechdel credits a friend named Liz Wallace, so maybe it really should be called the Liz Wallace Test...? Anyway, the test is much simpler than the name. To pass it your movie must have the following: a) there are at least two named female characters, who b) talk to each other about c) something other than a man.

Partly I resented being perceived as weak because I was a girl.

Yeah, I read Judy Blume. My mother didn't like that, but I read it anyhow.

She has given me a way out.

I'd been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents' tragedy