So, yes, at least from my end. You could say there's a lot of Alison [McGhee] in Gollie too.

I've been recognized in airports lots of places, but mostly getting recognized is at home.

Take this squirrel, for instance. Ulysses. Do I believe he can type poetry? Sure, I do believe it. There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible.

I think of Mercy Watson like a superball; there's a bouncy kind of optimism to her stories. She allows me to play, and she makes me laugh. Hopefully readers feel the same way.

The closest I can get to describing what happens is that voices come to me. I feel like I'm accessing something that is deeper and richer than me.

In luggage claim at the Minneapolis airport, the guy came up to me and said, "Maybe you're wrong, maybe stories do matter." I wrote that on a scrap of paper and put it above my desk. That was the thing that pushed me through to the end of telling Despereaux, that comment, "Maybe they do...maybe stories matter."

Reading is my passion.