I'd written personal essays before, but never on this scale -- never so often and with such, er, honesty. (If by honesty I mean slashing my wrists and hemorrhaging all over the computer screen).

I mean, I do actually think there is a qualitative difference between aborting in the early part of the first trimester and in, you know, the middle or later part of the second trimester, in a way that you feel about it in that you grow attached.

As a novelist, I mined my history, my family and my memory, but in a very specific way. Writing fiction, I never made use of experiences immediately as they happened. I needed to let things fester in my memory, mature and transmogrify into something meaningful.

If your white privilege and class privilege protects you, then you have an obligation to use that privilege to take stands that work to end the injustice that grants that privilege in the first place.

My own husband was divorced when we met, but without kids. I don't know what I would have done if he'd had them. I got the message very early on that the worst mistake a woman can make is marrying a man with children.

I'm sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor, but I've never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.