I am a feminist - I just think the label reflects my beliefs - but, you know, we say 'Rookie' is a website for teenage girls, not a feminist website for teenage girls. That's not because I'm not proud to call myself a feminist, but when you're calling attention to a project, you can very easily be pigeonholed by choosing certain identifiers.

In high school, I was doing my magazine 'Rookie' and a lot of writing, and I became a little less interested in the fashion world. I was approached by an agent for writing, and I said I wanted to act as well. They sent me scripts, and then I got my first Broadway play, 'This Is Our Youth'.

Before 'This is Our Youth', I did a week of table reading 'Airline Highway' at Steppenwolf in Chicago while the author, Lisa D'Amour, workshopped it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

I spend a lot of time with Buddhists. I'm not a Buddhist, but their relationship with death interests me.

The poet does not fear death, not because he believes in the fantasy of heroes, but because death constantly visits his thoughts and is thus an image of a serene dialogue.

I had seen cancer at a more cellular level as a researcher. The first time I entered the cancer ward, my first instinct was to withdraw from what was going on - the complexity, the death. It was a very bleak time.

I believe God weeps over - over death. Jesus wept at the grave the Lazarus. In the Bible, Jesus weeps at death.