Strangely enough, for many many years I didn't talk about my childhood and then when I did I got a ton of mail - literally within a year I got a couple of thousand letters from people who'd had a worse childhood, a similar childhood, a less-bad childhood, and the question that was most often posed to me in those letters was: how did you get past the trauma of being raised by a violent alcoholic?

Sorrow is not a raven perched persistently above a chamber door. Sorrow is a thing with teeth, and while in time it retreats, it comes back at the whisper of it's name.

I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.

That's all that matters, really: that we can make each other feel better.

Are you prepared for the first wound?

There's still a fascination with somebody who can write at book length, no matter what the book is.

If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that’s more than just entertainment-w hich is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people.