Things change…things happen…things you can’t even imagine when you’re young and full of hope.

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.

I try to create new characters in each book I write. That's what makes writing fun and interesting for me.

It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.

[With "Summer Sisters" the publisher] sent me on a big book tour. And it was the most wonderful professional experience of my life. I mean it was like Kleenex on every table wherever I was, friends patting friends on the back and they'd cry and I'd cry.

I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.