I look at the great poets of the Soviet Union, like Anna Akhmatova, who endured far worse then anything we've seen or hopefully that we will ever see. If they could keep writing and keep a voice alive, keep people hopeful through their poetry, then I would be ashamed to stop and to give in. It would be really self-indulgent, unacceptable, and inexcusable to walk away from it.

Hard to remember who is more dangerous: the people who are attacking our liberties overseas, or those who are suppressing them at home.

I always wrote; my first story was published in the magazine The American Girl when I was 11

I guess I don't have a candidate who makes my heart go pitter-patter the way I wish it would. I'm thinking, here's an African American candidate - yes! And here's a woman candidate - yes! Why can't I get behind either one of them? Don't tell me I have latent sexism or racism that I need to confront. I don't believe that. I think we are so burned by the current situation that we want somebody that it isn't possible to have. We want someone who definitely looks like the messiah.

The hope for a messiah puts too much on that one person. And you think that absolves you of personal responsibility and you don't have to act because that person will do it for you.

Capo, my first golden retriever, so loved to swim she once jumped off a cliff to get into Lake Superior.

Around the time I turned 30, I wanted to publish a novel