I think a setting is hugely important. I look at setting as a character with its own look, sound, history, quirks, goofy temperaments and moods.

I wrote one book, signed with a good agent, and sat back and waited for the phone to ring. I was sure that the great news would come at any moment. Four books later, I finally got that call.

Like all kids with divorced parents, I have an abundance of holidays.

I understood right from the start that every set of library doors were the sort of magic portals that lead to other lands. My God, right within reach there were dinosaurs and planets and presidents and girl detectives!

When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.

It's a great thing if you're a creative person and have some kind of acting or dance or singing, any art. I think it's great to be around people who support that and who are into it like you are, and you can have one big family and teachers who know what they're doing.

Before I was a mother, when I played characters that were mothers, I used my imagination, of course.

I didn't invent satire. I didn't come up with it. And it will continue to be a very powerful tool to disrupt political taboos and social taboos and religious taboos, because those taboos are always used to control and to curb people's way of creativity and thinking, by making them feel guilty because they want to make a change.