Sag Harbor' brought me a new readership - it's a coming of age tale about growing up in the '80s.

Even growing up the way I did, I was shocked by the level of poverty I saw as a college student. I thought the best way to understand it was to get close to it on the ground level.

I don't think we can fix poverty without fixing housing, and I don't think we can address housing without understanding landlords.

I teach at Harvard, and focusing on understanding this problem on a national level is a big priority of mine right now - where evictions are going up and down, what cities are actually instituting policies that work, what housing insecurity is doing to our cities, neighbourhoods, our kids.

I have a sense of urgency, of time. I am a woman and am always running between work, doctors' appointments, school meetings, filling up the fridge, then going back to work. Like everyone who combines professional and family life, I am always doing several things at the same time.

My mother has been the greatest influence on my life, morally. When I get right down to it, my mother and father are two people I can count on no matter what.

When I go to my live shows it's often a multigenerational audience, a family bonding experience.

My mother's Puerto Rican and my father's Russian-Jewish, so we consider ourselves to be Jewricans or Puertojews. I think Puertojew sounds like a kosher bathroom, so I prefer Jewrican.