Maybe it stems from my newspaper-reporting days, but I took notes the whole time - getting the call, how I felt. As soon as I put pen to paper, it became a story [Hunger Heart], not something happening to me but something I was recording.

...thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets beneath the skin.

I was 45 when I wrote most of this book [Hungry Heart ], at what felt like a halfway point in my life, and I thought, If I can't be honest now, when will it happen? It was so hard to step away from the [protection of] fiction, but I'm ready to talk start telling their truth.

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

There's nothing wrong with keeping your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say.

I get really starstruck and tongue tied when I'm around other writers and the conversation tends not to go well.

There's all kinds of love in the world, and not all of it looks like the stuff in greeting cards.