If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life.

I'd known enough flush times and lean ones to understand that money came and went. And that one day I'd also lose my looks, my seemingly boundless energy and maybe the ability to catch the eye of an attractive man and the audacity to Rollerblade. My name would be forgotten. So would bad reviews, and good ones. But loving a child is something that lasts. Long after all the rest is gone, that's what endures.

I continued to protect him with my silence.

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.

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

I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.

She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.