I was kind of an outsider growing up, and I preferred reading to being with other kids. When I was about seven, I started to write my own books. I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer - I just was one.

When I began my career as a flight attendant, I was a 21-year-old with a B.A. in English and stars in her eyes. I wanted to see every city in the world. I wanted to have adventures that, I hoped, would fuel a writing career some day.

I was a daughterless mother. I had nowhere to put the things a mother places on her daughter. The nail polish I used to paint our toenails hardened. Our favorite videos gathered dust. Her small apron was in a box in the attic. Her shoes - the sparkly ones, the leopard rain boots, the ballet slippers - stood in a corner.

This was 1978, when flying was still an occasion, a special grand event that took planning and care. I worked as a TWA flight attendant then. I stood in my Ralph Lauren uniform at the boarding door and smiled at the passengers through lips coated with lipstick that perfectly matched the stripe on my jacket. Mostly, the passengers smiled back.

If not for my family, I would have been in big trouble.

You always draw inspiration from your family or your parents if they've proven to be inspirational. My mother is someone who's always been inspirational to me.

I started to watch 'Play for Today' and plays like 'Cathy Come Home,' and Kenneth Branagh's 'Billy' trilogy in the 1980s, which took us into the world of the Belfast family. As a kid in Luton, how was I ever going to know that world otherwise?

All too often, I'm sorry to say, I relegated my family to the cracks and margins.