Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted.

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

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane began with a friend giving me a rabbit doll - forgive me, Edward, for using that word; he doesn't like "doll" - for Christmas. I said, "Oh, he's lovely, what's his name?" And she said, "Edward." And a few days after I received the rabbit, who was dressed very handsomely in Edwardian kind of clothes, I saw him stripped of his finery and face down on the bottom of the ocean floor. Why? I don't know. But that's where his story began in my head.

No matter how hard you try to be present at home, you're always doing the things that you have to do.

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

The Tale of Despereaux is the story of an unlikely hero, a mouse, who falls in love with a princess and then must save her. It's a triumph of the human spirit, via a mouse.

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.