Insights don't usually arrive at my desk, but go into notebooks when I'm on the move. Or half-asleep.

But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.

In my 20s I was in constant pain from undiagnosed endometriosis. With no prospect of a cure, I decided I needed a career - writing - that could accommodate being ill.

The late Christopher Hitchens had the professional contrarian's fixation on attacking sacred cows, and rather soon after his cancer diagnosis, he became one himself.

I have a different perspective on the world than the way I looked at the world when I was 20. I was kind of naive. I'm a cancer survivor, been working in this industry for a time, and older with more opinions, more experience.

The Democratic position seems to be everything is going to be free. Free education. Free health care. Free housing. Free love. Free kittens, I don't know.

All of the reality TV I've done has usually been simultaneously an opportunity to create awareness or raise funds for my mom's breast cancer organization.