Writing is my shelter. I don't hide behind the words; I use them to dig inside my heart to find the truth.

It should be obvious that I wasn't no honor roll student in high school. My favorite class was boys.

I'm not trying to be a middle aged centerfold, I just want to look at myself naked and not be disgusted.

We get divorce, we get conned, someone we love dies, or we can't find anybody to love us or somebody breaks our heart and we realize this fairy tale ain't fair. So we suffer.

Writing is the only place I can be myself and not feel judged.

I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots--things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story--readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what you expect, not the easy answers you get on TV, not wash and wear philosophies, but a reproduction of believable, emotional experiences.

I like doing the readings and the autographing, but the interviewing gets a little tedious because you get asked the same questions every day and sometimes three or four times a day.