This is motherhood for you,' said my own mother. 'Going through life with your heart outside your body.

So here I am. Twenty-eight years old, with thirty looming on the horizon. Drunk. Fat. Alone. Unloved. And, worst of all, a cliche, Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones put together, which was probably about how much I weighed.

If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer?

Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.

I'm not cut out to be a famous person; I can't do my hair and makeup well enough.

I love it when people ask who my influences are... or what my favorite part of my last book was... or the last great book I read.

I went to Princeton, I minored in women's studies.