I'm still afraid. I'm still afraid every day.

I have met women who don't have close women friends, and I've always been like, "How could that possibly be?"

I've learned a lot as a writer about poetry.

Fifteen. Sixteen was probably something, but fifteen - fifteen was a place between here and nowhere.

Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?

Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.

That's what writing is. It's moving past your fear.