There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets.

At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood.

I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way but for me part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.

Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother "worked" at anything besides raising her children.

I continued to protect him with my silence.

[On home births:] In a house where there had been three people, there were now four, although no one had come in the door.