I feel like in the reading I did when I was growing up, and also in the way that people talk and tell stories here in the South, they use a lot of figurative language. The stories that I heard when I was growing up, and the stories that I read, taught me to use the kind of language that I do. It's hard for me to work against that when I am writing.

One of the things that is so striking to me about the South, especially living here now as an adult, is that I see a lot more mixed-race couples than I saw when I was growing up in the 1980s and the 1990s. I feel like living across the color lines has become something that's more expected.

The UnAmericans' is a compassionate and brilliantly rendered debut - and for a book set largely in the past, these stories feel essential to understanding the contemporary world in which we live.

I'm always thinking about time. That's one of themes I return to in my work, the way the past bears on the present, the way that time is not linear, and how that expresses itself in people's everyday lives.

That's what's so special about 'One Life to Live:' it's just this real family in the sense of, we're only as strong as our weakest link. It behooves us to help people who haven't done the genre because it makes us all look better.

The artistic side of our family was very important because one person encourages the other. It was a vey enlightening place to be as a kid because of all the music and dancing, and my dad played banjo; my sisters played piano and sang.

For women of my generation, it was the 'juggling act.' Jobs, marriage, children, homes, and aging parents were the balls we added, tossing them in the air as our lives filled up and praying they wouldn't come crashing down on our heads.

My dad was a voracious news consumer. I remember just sitting with my family all the time. I would sit on his lap and read the paper with him. He would read it to me.