Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other.

I have had this longstanding interest in going back to school to get a Ph.D. in art history. I was especially interested in exploring this idea of the ecstatic impulse in an artist.

I grew up with older brothers, adore them, can't imagine going through life without them, and I definitely think I draw on that love when I'm writing about siblings. It's so powerful, the jump-in-front-of-a-train-to-protect-them kind of love.

Second novels are bears. As are other people's expectations for them. I think taking the time you need with the second book is key. Writers spend years and years on their first novels and then are often expected to turn out a second at warp speed, a recipe for failure.

My father's family is German and Czech.

I'd like to think that I'm a calm and sweet person. I tend to be very playful at home with my children, but in life... we have to fight our battles - our work battles, our political battles, our personal battles - and we're focused.

When I hosted the dinner I served fast food hamburgers. It had nothing to do with black, white, purple, yellow, green race. it had nothing to do with Tiger or his family or his golf game.

I was the youngest of my entire family so you are tap-dancing to try to get the attention of your older cousins. I really hit my social stride in 6th grade, but before that I was a pretty big dork. You learn how to be amusing and how to work for it.