When I heard about the Microsoft Kinect, though, I felt an urgency rising in me. A game you played without touching any machinery? A chance to wave your hands around, Minority-Report style, and move things around on a screen? This sounded like almost too much fun, with gadget-y pizzazz that sounded astonishing.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn't, but they do, and a lot.

I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.

There are cultures that believe having your photograph taken steals your soul. I don't think there is a stolen soul in a picture, but still - why is it so hard to throw them away?

Why, I wonder, should the popularity of a news story matter to me? Does it mean it's a good story or just a seductive one?

When you're researching you're learning. When you're writing, you're teaching.