Packing is important because a lot of times I have to go places where I have to be in four different climates in three weeks. For example, Bosnia, Ireland, Rome. Different parts of Italy. You have to pack and get it down to a science.

There's a lot of people that need these stories, and they can't come to my book, so I'm going to be the bookmobile and I'm going to come to them.

The ability to be present with every single person and engage was a great model for me of the work that a writer needs to do. Writers, living or dead, still guide me in many ways.

That's all you have to ask from yourself writing a book. That it's the best you can do and that you did it without any ego involved and that you did it for somebody else. That's the best you can do.

Those of us who are writers and have to perform to communities that aren't used to coming to book events, I would recommend taking some theater.

I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone whos busy and has too many children, like my mother.

Every single house has had death visit.