I look at life, the experiences I've had, at the human condition, the dynamics between people, the news (world news), and draw from the compelling realities all around us.

In all honesty, at that time, I never saw myself as an author... I was just a Mom in a state of panic, trying to enter a short story contest to win the prize money in order to keep the lights on in my home.

I love the paranormal, because there, every genre I write can become one beacon for my imagination.

It was all a back-handed blessing, and my friends were the ones who kept the faith, read my work, and urged me to submit it to publishers (by sending it out for me - they would not hear no for an answer.

I would look at a dog and when our eyes met, I realized that the dog and all creatures are my family. They're like you and me.

I always get told by women that they would love a daughter-in-law like me. That's big, because not too many people seem to want their son to marry an actress!

I have always felt that my career was not going to be a straight shot up, but more of a kind of rolling wave, so that I could raise my children. So I got pregnant when I was the head of production at a studio, and I became chairperson at a bigger studio when I was pregnant with my second daughter. You just do it!

Sometimes, violent details have been eliminated from fairy tales simply because they were deemed too graphic. So one does not, at the end of Disney's version of 'Cinderella,' see the stepsisters' eyes get pecked and pecked by doves, because Disney wanted to market the story for wholesome family viewing.