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I think I told my parents I wanted to be a writer, just so they'd kind of think I had some direction in life. It made it easier to pick out classes at college, like, 'Oh, this is writing classes, that's what I'm doing.'

My parents are creative on many fronts, and they pushed me to be that way, too. They wanted me to write, actually.

I simply loved education. I mean, I always loved acting as well. It really was a major passion for me, but one I felt I could only fully explore once I'd completed my degree.

The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as a writer possible.

I worked in a number of high schools in New York, and I wound up at Stuyvesant High School, which is known nationally for producing brilliant scientists and mathematicians, but I had writing classes. I thought I was teaching. They thought I was teaching, but I was learning.

My parents told me that education was the path to success - and they showed me, taking me to Head Start while they were pursuing their own college degrees.

Like most kids growing up, I had a very wide interest. I was interested in everything. I tried to take advantage of everything, from the sciences to music to writing to literature.

I went to a regular school... education kept me sane.

I don't know whether I much enjoyed education. I was not academically gifted.