[A businessmen in plane after 9\11] asked me, "What are you working on now?" And I said I was writing a story about a mouse who tries to save a princess. I was mortified. Here the world is falling down around us, and I'm trying to tell the story about a mouse who saves a princess. I said "It doesn't matter at all now."

The Watsons have lost sight of the fact that Mercy Watson is a pig, and they love her truly, madly, deeply. They live next door to two elderly sisters, Eugenia Lincoln and Baby Lincoln. Eugenia Lincoln is horrified that a pig is living in the house next door. Baby Lincoln secretly likes Mercy a great deal.

Love is in all of the books, and that's the connective tissue between them. There's a lot of hope in me; I can feel it. These stories are balls of light for me.

Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart. (Old Doll)

I like to think of myself as a storyteller.

I think I'm succinct to the point of trying to write the two-word novel. Editing my work almost never means taking anything out but rather adding, because I'm always stripping down. I tend to under-write rather than over-write.

Allow me to congratulate you on your very astute powers of observation.