I go for drives in the Flint Hills, which is the setting for 'The Virgin of Small Plains'.

I'm a Midwestern girl, born and bred. It's harder for some of us to write about things closer to home. It's not so much a fear of telling the truth but wanting to do it justice.

I often feel like not writing! Sometimes I overcome it by just sitting there until writing happens. Sometimes I don't write, because books often need periods of percolation.

Being a writer - even a best-selling one - is usually not anywhere near as public as being a movie star, at least not when I'm out in 'real life' like this. Not that I don't use what fame I have, every chance I get, to help sell more books.

It is ironic that so many politicians claim to defend traditional Christian values of 'faith and family.' In fact, a radical antifamily ideology permeates Christ's teaching, and the early Christian tradition often set faith and family against each other.

I have family members that are bipolar.

I love being at home now, improving my cooking. I've got a really bad memory, so my first attempts were a disaster - I'd forget what ingredients to put in. But I do a lasagna that's a crowd-pleaser, and a good lemon drizzle cake, which I take to my mom's for the Sunday roast to fatten the family up.

I have an action figure, and so do my parents, so it's odd that we all have these dolls of ourselves. It's a little bit surreal but kind of fun. You can play with the whole family.