This is the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me,” I said, through my tear-clogged throat. “I want you to know that.” But even as the words were leaving my mouth, I knew it wasn’t true. In the grand, historical scheme of things, my father leaving us was doubtlessly worse. Which is one of the many things that sucked about my father?? he forever robbed me of the possibility of telling another man, This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and meaning it.

There's something really nice about writing something on Wednesday and watching it being performed live for a studio audience on Tuesday. You never really get that with novels.

My lazy, unfair assumption is that everything's easier when you're young and stunning. And maybe it is! But I'd like to see for myself.

I've learned a lot this year.. I learned that things don't always turn our the way you planned, or the way you think they should. And I've learned that there are things that go wrong that don't always get fixed or get put back together the way they were before. I've learned that some broken things stay broken, and I've learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you.

As many times as I told her she was beautiful, I know that she never believed me. As many times as I said it didn’t matter, I knew that to her it did.

I was an English major in college, took a ton of creative writing courses, and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years.

I don't particularly like being angry about stuff. I'd rather hang out with my daughter and write my little books.