By the time I'm nine I know the world is a dangerous place. I've heard whispers about razorblades in apples, about Charlie Manson and his family. But no one is offering any clear information.

By the time I'm nine I know the world is a dangerous place. I've heard whispers about razorblades in apples, about Charlie Manson and his family. But no one is offering any clear information.

The first book I could call mine, my first book, was a picture book, The Magic Monkey - it was adapted from an old Chinese legend by a thirteen-year-old prodigy named Plato Chan with the help of his sister.

What you fear your whole life comes to pass. You end up living toward it, you spend your life running from it but your foot is nailed to the sidewalk. You circle around it until you wear yourself own.

Certain stories we carry with us, events in our life, they define who we are. It's not a matter of getting over anything; we have to make the best of it.

I believe poetry has very little to do with memory.

I get inspired by my friends, and if a friend is a writer, that is even deeper.