I took my first creative writing class when I was 24, then went onto to get a graduate degree in poetry. I've sort of never looked back from there.

I wrote a lot of poetry when I was a teenager - mostly desperate love poetry!

There are many days when I want to throw my computer out the window, when I tell myself I'd be better off selling shoes at the mall. But I always keep at it, because I have to. Writing is completely part of who I am. Even if I never published another book, I would keep at it - because it feeds my life and makes it richer.

I get suggestions all the time. People feel quite free at events or even on the street to tell me what they think I should be writing. What I've learned, though, is that this thing, this connection, has to be in place for me to be able to kind of launch into a world imaginatively.

On both 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette,' it seems like proposing marriage is equivalent to saying, 'Let's date.' Everyone knows those aren't the same things.

I was not always someone who wanted to get married or thought I would get married, so being a true writer, I was always navel-gazing: 'What are good marriages? What are bad marriages?'

The only way marriage can work is if a man respects the woman and she is a thinking woman and he wants to work on the marriage.

I love romantic comedies... but they have to be done right, but when they are, they're great.