I grew up around poets and novelists and my dad wrote poems about everything - from a cat sleeping in a window to a car wreck he passed on the highway. I learned not to censor myself: that was one of things I learned in my apprenticeship, my creative-writing apprenticeship with my dad.

Sade's stuff is real deceptive. She's got stuff about prostitutes, poverty and people on the streets.

I write first for myself as a therapeutic process, to get stuff out and to deal with it.

It's always been hard for me to do without sounding precious or too corny or whatever.

I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.

I was immediately taken with Geoff Muldaur's rich soulful voice, masterful phrasing and guitar playing when I first heard him.

I don't keep a journal anymore. I did when I was a teenager, but now because I write about it all in my songs, that's what I'm really doing.