Opening myself to criticism was a big door to go through. You can be afraid about something your whole life, about being out in public where people know your name but not you, and it can cripple your ability to try new things.

It's really an interesting problem, trying to earn a living and serve art and serve kids. What I try to create are these visual layers so that readers feel the possibility exists that there might be something in the book they never saw before.

When you look at children, they're so beautiful, and they seem so peaceful because their faces aren't all wrinkly and worried. They're like beautiful little pieces of pottery or something. You want to think they have this peace because they have no big responsibilities, but it's just not true.

Family life is not a computer program that runs on its own; it needs continual input from everyone.

I would love a family. I'm at the age where the wish for a child gets stronger. But who knows.

My mother, a teacher, encouraged me to use my creativity as an actual way to make a living, and my father, a Mississippi physician, did two things. First, he taught me that all human beings should be treated equally because no one is better than anyone else, and he never pressured me to become a doctor.

Mysteries, like the Masonic rites, are ones parents and elders are sworn not to reveal to the uninitiated, which include all children. And so we sought for signs.