Although both of us were raised on Oahu, in Honolulu, my mother has always had fond memories of Maui; this was, after all, where she and my father, then penniless yet oddly optimistic newlyweds, honeymooned in 1969.

One of the writers I most admire is Hilary Mantel because in the middle of her career, she just changed paths entirely and became just a totally different novelist.

I think there are patterns of the aftermath of colonization that you see echoed in cultures and communities across the world.

I wanted to see how flavors, spices, and grains traveled back and forth along the Silk Road and were interpreted by a multitude of cultures' palates.

I've been fortunate enough to travel the world because of my career, but the downside has been spending long spells apart from my daughters.

In 1989, I retired from Bell Laboratories to become a full-time writer. Not that I didn't enjoy my engineering career, but rather I liked being a novelist just a bit better.

Sure, theater is tough because you're not home at night a lot and you work on weekends - every job has its downside. But to do something that you love doing for two hours a night, that's a pretty sweet gig.

I run a business and go all over the world doing things for that business, things that are fairly orthogonal. But my job is to run my company, not to be the best Instagrammer. I'll let other people be awesome at it.