Like my mother said, you can't go back to holding hands

I am certainly a fearful person, but fearless in my writing. So there's that other person inside.

With "Margaret," I remember clearly it was, you know because I did remember it clearly. I was young. I was young in terms of experience and what did I know about and I had an incredible memory from my own childhood. And so it never occurred to me to write for any other age group. And I thought I'm going to write a book and I'm going to tell the truth.

I didn't know I was really a writer until I read it in the New York Times. And then I thought, "Oh my god, maybe I can really do this". That was a review of "Margaret."

Little kids are amazing. They seem able to adjust to anything.

I was sick all the time, one exotic illness after another, which lasted throughout my twenties. My worst decade. But from the day the first book was accepted, I never got sick again. Writing changed my life.

I stop and think before I start a new book and ask myself do I really want to spend the next year or two or three with these characters because if I don't, then I shouldn't be writing about them.