When I was growing up, my parents would apologize when we didn't have enough money for something. I'd always tell them that it was O.K. and that I had learned to work hard because of them.

I just think it's crazy that we don't think that the youth are valid. They're the ones who really know what's going on.

My mother struggled immensely with mental illness, and so did I. She grew up bipolar, but it was never diagnosed nor recognized. It was shrugged off like a 'symptom' of being female - of her being weak. I also experienced this growing up: I felt that the great pain I experienced was a dramatisation.

I was depressed at a very young age - mental illness runs in my family, especially on the female side.

I feel my dad, I still feel his love, and I still love him. I would do anything to have him back, but half the reason that my life is good, has real, true value, is that he died. I would obviously rather have him alive, but he gave me so much in his death.

When I first read 'At Freddie's', I was struggling with my own writing, particularly with how to write about a sad subject - the death of a parent - without writing an entirely sad book.

I love what I did in 'Death Sentence,' but that was a low budget action film.

There were days I could barely struggle into a size 46 or 48, months of larges and XXLs, and endless rounds of leggings with the elastic at the waist stretched to its limit and beyond - topped with the fashion equivalent of a tea cozy. And always black, because I was in mourning for my slimmer self.