My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was allowed to read whatever I wanted.

It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.

Mostly I enjoy the restaurants (my husband is a chef), though I wish we had a wider diversity of ethnic food.

My mother is an office manager, my father a professor of economics and financial planner.

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.

I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.