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I loved every minute of my three years majoring in classics at Berkeley.

It took me a couple of years after I got out of Berkeley before I dared to start writing. That academic mind-set - which was kind of shallow in my case anyway - had begun to fade.

I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.

Today I still feel like the most illiterate person ever to have roamed the campuses of Wellesley and Harvard, where I later transferred. I remain intimidated by all the books I haven't read, but over the years I've come to realize that being a student is a lifelong adventure.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

I did go to UCLA for art, but the other option was going to Sarah Lawrence and doing creative writing all the way. So that is part of the reason I love to read so much.

Luckily, I was blessed to go to Stanford and a school that was primarily focused on academics, so it was a blessing.

Occasionally, I just need to escape from my work or be reminded of the comparative bliss of my own life, so I pick up a novel.

You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.

Whenever I have a few hours to dive into a book, I am happy.