The darkest period of my life, so far, arrived the summer I was pregnant with my eldest son. The future was growing in me with all of its terrifying unpredictability, and I found myself anxious, unable to work and woefully at sea.

At some point, I picked up an old library copy of 'To The Lighthouse' someone had bought for 25 cents. I began to read and didn't stop until the sun had blistered my back. A mysterious rightness, a beautiful submerged truth had invaded me, one that has ever since seemed slightly beyond my grasp.

I feel as if I've been so inured to failure, because I fail more than I succeed. As with any kind of fiction, I throw out so many pages; I get rejected so many times.

There aren't very many good models of feminine rage - and the ones that we remember are ones where women take that anger internally and implode themselves in a real way, like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary.

I do a lot of book signings and conventions every year, and I meet a great many readers who are struggling... they're working through illness, injury, addiction, depression, grief, or some other trauma. It seems to me that there's a lot of heroism in fighting those things as well, as best you can.

Americans will forever be proud of the brave men and women of our armed forces who served in World War II, and we will never forget those who paid the last full measure of devotion for our country. Their service protected our freedom and changed the course of history around the world.

The death of my own son has made me more sensitive. It's made me more compassionate.

The tattoos are about my grandmother dying, and they tell the story about my mother and father, my brothers and my sister, my kids. It's pretty much a family tree on my arm with my life in football, too.