Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.

I went to a football school, which meant that I went to a university that served up education and was simultaneously operating a sports franchise.

I've definitely taken a lot of consolation from animals in my life. There have been times when I've been really sad, and they gave solace and comfort and companionability more than a person.

I might have missed my calling as an editor. In the spring, the sight of my empty garden beds gives me the horticultural equivalent of writers' block: So much space! So many plants to choose among, and yet none of them seem quite right!

I think the real reason is that life has no meaning. I mean, no obvious meaning. You wake up, you go to work, you do stuff. I think everybody's always looking for something a little unusual that can preoccupy them and help pass the time.

I work at home, in the country, and days will go by when, except for my husband and son and the occasional UPS man, the only sentient creatures that see me are my chickens and turkeys.

In an interesting inversion of status, the reigning breed in the dog park these days is the really-oddball-unidentifiable-mixed-breed-mutt-found-wandering-the-street or its equivalent. The stranger the mutt the better; the more peculiar the circumstance of it coming into your life, the better.