One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I've ever spent.

When you're in that state of grief, any little breeze, any hello, any confrontation, any grazing of someone meeting your eyes, might cause you suddenly to burst into grief. You could be looking at a jar of peanut butter in the supermarket, and then start crying.

I never paid attention when people said, "That's gotta be poetry. That's gotta be fiction," except when I was in a graduate program, and you had to claim your genre.

I've always read broadly: literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, chick lit, historical, dystopian, nonfiction, memoir. I've even read Westerns. I prefer female protagonists.

The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment.

People know when you're speaking from el corazón. You have that pain. Take that pain and do something with it. That's very powerful.

So how are you supposed to learn how to drive with this guy yapping at you? My brothers were the ones who got to practice. So when you have to get on the expressway, you're afraid. That's what I think. That's why I take back routes on two-lane highways.