For me, a story begins with music: I feel the rhythm, the cadence, the pulse of the characters and their voices and the setting. Because I had just finished writing a book called 'Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine,' I was already filled with the music of the lives and culture of the Irish people, so I thought, why not use it?

Over the years, my students influenced me greatly, and I've learned many lessons from them. I have an immense amount of respect for them, and I think that respect for your audience is the foremost requirement for anyone who wants to write.

For 'The Journal of Finn Reardon,' I traveled to New York City and walked the streets where Finn and his friends would have lived, worked, and played. I visited the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street and toured an actual flat in which families like Finn's might have lived.

I never intended to be a teacher, but once I started teaching, I found that junior high kids are easy to get hooked on, and I stayed for nearly twenty years.

There's an internal battle. I need to work, I need to work, I need to work and I need to be home with my kids and the kids win.

I realized relatively early on that I had no desire to be a mother whatsoever. I actually love children, but specifically other people's.

I think one of the things that I picked up from Nigeria is the constant pressure to be excellent. Parents drill in this responsibility towards family, but also a responsibility toward making sure your family name is heralded.

I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that's rather silly.