I didn't think being a writer was a fancy thing. It was a job like any other job, except apparently you could do it at home.

My target audience is anyone who finds the world interesting and human behavior fascinating, terrible, inspiring, funny, and occasionally, mysterious.

My greatest surprise was that so much of what we think is common sense is just prejudice, and so much of what we think is scientific fact is about as scientific as the idea that the sun revolves around the earth.

I was the kind of reader in smudged pink harlequin glasses sitting on the cool, dusty floor of the Arrandale public library, standing at the edge of the playground, having broken a tooth in dodge ball, and lying under my covers with a flashlight.

My partner and I had our first son in 1996, and the office became the baby's room. Our second son was born in 2001, and the office became the kids' room.

It was important to me that Beau and Hunter felt our family was whole, and that meant we got to define our relationship, not anyone else.

My parents worked enormously hard to put four children through college. We didn't have a lot of money.

Leaving southern Sudan as a child was terrifying. It was 1985, and my family and I were trying to escape to Khartoum, the capital in the North, to safety.