Expats are a self-selecting group of outgoing, confident people - if you're not those things, you probably don't choose this adventure - and the lifestyle is very conducive to making fast, close friends.

I always wanted to write. But honestly I'm glad I didn't do it back when I was twenty-five or so, when it's now clear to me that I was a very poor writer and could've ruined my career before it even started.

I'd had 12 different job titles in publishing before I typed 'The End' at the bottom of a manuscript page. I thought the manuscript was in great shape; I was pretty proud of myself. Then I sent it to some publishing friends, and they tore it apart.

Before I wrote my first novel, 'The Expats,' I spent nearly two decades at various arms of publishing houses such as Random House, Workman, and HarperCollins, mostly as an acquisitions editor. But a more accurate title for that job might be rejection editor: while I acquired maybe a dozen projects per year, I'd reject hundreds upon hundreds.

My university work was not central to my education.

When I was in high school in Paris, some photographers wanted my photos and asked if I was interested in modeling. I wasn't interested because I wanted to get my education first. I was scared because I didn't know what I was getting into.

My athleticism was really the core to social acceptance, because in those days the overwhelming number of students came from more of a public school background than I did.

I was fortunate that I came out to the Valley in 1979, when I came out to go to Stanford Business School, and my very first assignment as a teaching assistant for an investments professor was to - he told me go down to this computer company in Cupertino called Apple.