I think of myself as Rebecca Wells from Lodi Plantation, in Central Louisiana, a girl who was lucky enough to be born into a family that encouraged creativity and didn't call me lazy or nuts when I dressed up in my mother's peignoirs and played the piano, having painted a small sign decorated in glitter that read 'The Piano Fairy Girl.

Can you reclaim that free-girl smile, or is it like virginity- once you loose it, that's it?

A scent that disturbs me and delights me. It smells like ripe pears, vetiver, a bit of violet and something else- something spicy almost biting and exotic.

we have to suffer mosquitoes the size of blackbirds.

I come to writing from hearing great stories as a child in Louisiana, where the mark of a person was his or her ability to be a raconteur. I also come to writing as a professional actress whose body has been trained to listen and smell and inhabit characters without judgment.

It's life. You don't figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.

Life is short but it is wide. This too shall pass.