I believe that illness has led me to a life of gratitude, so I consider Lyme disease at this point in my life to be a blessing in disguise.

How wide and sweet and wild motherhood and sisterhood can be.

What they don't know is that I went over the edge years ago, and lived to tell the tale.

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.

I value humor, kindness, and the ability to tell a good story far more than money, status, or the kind of car someone drives.

The love we most cherish will, of necessity, bring us pain. Because that love is like the setting of a body with broken bones. But I want to stage the setting. I want to direct all scenes.