I was a federal public defender during the most important years of the drug war. I saw people go to jail for nothing, and go to jail for a long time.

The first inkling my husband had that I was thinking about suicide was when he checked my blog.

Think about it, I say. How many straight men maintain inappropriately intimate relationships with their mothers? How many shop with them? I want a gay son. People laugh, but they assume I'm kidding. I'm not.

Nothing makes me roll my eyes faster than a "Coexist" bumper sticker.

Aborting my baby is the most serious of the many maternal crimes I tally in my head when I am at my lowest, when the Bad Mother label seems to fit best. Rocketship was my baby. And I killed him.

The only difference between a writer and someone who wants to be a writer is discipline.

Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair, that sliver of malice, that makes them think, 'Aha, here is the story.'