I loved writing for the school newspaper. I liked to report and interview people, but I really liked to write columns, funny columns.

In a regular class I don't focus on the form, but I think that focus is helpful for brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly, especially with autobiographical material.

Drugs and drinking affect every family I know, country and city, middle-class and poor.

I love writing about men. To get by in the world you have to know how men think. Not that all guys think alike, but women tend to think about more things at the same time, an overgeneralization, but I find it easier to make my male characters focus than I do my female characters.

Maybe the hardest lesson is the one I have to learn over and over again, that each story is its own animal, that every story I write is going to come only with difficulty.

Eighty percent of all novels are bought by women, or so I've heard.

I like to go where the life is.