Flowers heal me. Tulips make me happy. I keep myself surrounded by them as soon as they start coming to the island from Canada, and after that when they come from the fields in La Connor, not far from where I live.

I come to writing from hearing great stories as a child in Louisiana, where the mark of a person was his or her ability to be a raconteur. I also come to writing as a professional actress whose body has been trained to listen and smell and inhabit characters without judgment.

As a writer, I am not goddess of the universes I create. I am at most a stage manager of the plentiful gifts which tumble out of the horn of plenty, which is to say there is a source so sweet and forgiving and generous that I pray every day to let that source be my guide.

I believe that illness has led me to a life of gratitude, so I consider Lyme disease at this point in my life to be a blessing in disguise.

I love both real and fake jewelry. My kids make me necklaces, and I wear those, too. Every day, I wear my gold wedding band and the Cartier watch my husband gave me.

There are so many different reasons as to why I love riding trains. But I think ultimately it's the romantic feeling of it. There's something about it that just transports me into old films.

My mother was 18 when I was born. She split with my father when I was 6, and married another man when I was about 7. My mother was about 25, my stepfather was about 26, I'm six or seven, I was looking at them and I knew they were just too young.

The only pleasurable part of taking the subway, as everyone will agree, is concocting elaborate fantasies about what it would be like to be married to the most interesting strangers you see there.