When I was a kid growing up, I always thought I would be a journalist, and I thought, you know, I'd cover stories about other people, and we're always taught never to make the story about yourself.

It used to upset me - now it makes me sad - to see people use patriotism and our troops as a pawn in their political argument. Because I know personally, growing up in a military family, the sacrifice that is made on a daily basis.

The troops aren't red and blue. They're not black and white. They're not male and female. They are Americans! When they put their uniforms on, they are Americans. And that's a fact.

One of my favorite memories was one time Prince picked me up and said we were going to Michael Jordan's birthday party.

I met my husband, Jacob, in medical school. We married and went to live in Hawaii where his family lived. It was very beautiful, but I wasn't used to being on an island and needed wide open spaces. Eventually we moved to Maine, New England.

I like simple things. I like being in my family in the South and playing petanque.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first began to think about what profession I should go into. It was 1978. I was seven and had just been handed over by the women of my family to the earnest and self-important gatherings of the men. I was no longer the responsibility of my aunts and older female cousins. I was now a man. This was a tragedy.

The books that stuck with me most as a child were 'A Wrinkle In Time', 'Dracula', 'Hatchet', 'Bunnicula', 'White Fang', and this YA/kids' book called 'Nobody's Fault' where a kid drowns one weekend as friends play around a flooded ditch.