In 'Love Story,' Oliver Barrett IV comes from generations of wealth and privilege, but when he meets working-class Jennifer Cavilleri, he can't resist. When they marry, his father disowns him, but they struggle on in love, until she's diagnosed with cancer and they can't afford the costly treatments.

I wrote a story about a man who is orphaned during the 1927 Mississippi River flood in Louisiana, and he's on the banks of levee, and he's starving. And there are other people starving, too. And he's so desperate, he's seven years old, that he finds a pig that's been abandoned. He kills it with a hammer, and he drags it back.

My mother was born in Switzerland, my stepfather in Canada.

All I am is a writer and a mom.

The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father.' And you know what they say? 'I could never do that!'

Yeah, I definitely wanted to do a kids' movie because I have a kid. I want to do things that my daughter can see soon - when she is old enough to know what a movie is.

I've organized everything for my family since I was little. I know how to delegate and budget. I solve people's problems.

Basically, I believe the world is a jungle, and if it's not a bit of a jungle in the home, a child cannot possibly be fit to enter the outside world.