Kids aren't supposed to have to figure out how to be happy. They just are.

There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal.

I lived in upstate New York until I was ten years old and we moved overseas. I have a lot of nostalgic memories of that part of the world, and I love going back there by writing the Lakeshore books.

In all my novels, a sense of place - not just geographic but social - is a critical element. I have always been drawn to the novels of Edith Wharton, among others, where social dynamics are crucial. Wharton's class consciousness fascinates me, and some of the tension in my books stems from that.

She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.

Teachers are by nature idealists, and they believe anything can be learned.

You're never alone when you're reading a book.