It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.

Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.

I tried his cell over and over but he never answered. Then I’d call just to hear his voice on the outgoing message, until eventually that was gone too.

He felt it too, the air between us, the invisible lines that something or someone had drawn to connect us. That's the way I remember it.

I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.

It's a jagged thing in my throat, how much I miss her.

I grew up in San Francisco in the 1970s. We were part of a church that belonged to the California Jesus movement.