You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.

Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.

The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.

The themes in my books, like in life, are about grace and redemption and you never know when they're going to show up and what form they're going to be in. Stories emerge from keeping your heart open to the people that cross in front of you or the dogs or the mice, and their ability to open you up and enrich your life.

What was it like...to have someone who knew you would always return and who welcomed you with open arms?

I didn't know at the time I was writing Because of Winn-Dixie where the story came from, but in retrospect I can see that it was a response to a terribly harsh winter here in Minnesota.

Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.