I always wondered what it was like to be just a normal kid growing up in trying times or during a great moment in history.

When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about plain, normal, everyday girls.

I loved to read, and if I could've been a professional reader, that's probably what I would've wanted to be!

My mother was a great advocate of women's rights, a member of the League of Women's Voters and lifelong member of Planned Parenthood and an advocate of a woman's rights in terms of reproductive issues. She was also a founding member of Common Cause in the state of Indiana.

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity.

I grew up in a town with no movie theater. TV was my only link to the outside world. Film wasn't such a big deal to me. It was TV. So much so, that when I meet TV stars now... Not my co-workers, but real TV stars, I get nervous. I freak out around them.

My work is not my life. I started writing quite late, I didn't have that 'writing is everything, my art is all.' You have to be able to recognise the difference between the two.

In my sort of young, idealistic mind, I was just like, 'Well, it's either theater or film for me, and that will be that!'