Growing up a lonely only child prepared me for the years of solitude spent as a writer; years spent in the company of people who don't exist, imaginary people you have conversations with. It's a paid form of madness, this writing stuff.

I'll always write picture books - it's just what I do. I'd even do it if I wasn't being paid.

I love my shed. It's my space and my mess - and I know where everything is.

Despite the fact the studio looks out of five windows onto a picture perfect view of sky, hills and wide open spaces, I work with my blinds firmly drawn, daylight filtered through their white canvas, a painterly northern light falling through two big skylights above my table, and nothing visible outside to distract me.

My mother and stepfather were in Vaudeville. And my stepfather was an alcoholic. It was a lot of roller coaster times. But it's all I knew. I think they did the best they could under the circumstances, with me and all the family.

Both my parents came with their parents during the revolution in Cuba. Both my parents were born in Cuba. They left everything over there. My family got stripped of everything - of their land, of their jobs, everything.

I know the type of demons they have to fight and I am going to help them, because it's the only way I can keep them from getting to my family. I have to clean up my friends because they are around my boys. It's upsetting.

If you can teach a child, then her family and her future is taken care of.