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'E.T.' was the movie that made me want to make movies in the first place, and it was the first movie that made me focus on writing instead of what happens in the movie.

When I wrote my stories in elementary school, I signed them all 'Karen E. Bender' with the squiggly 'E.' I wanted, from an early age, to be a writer, and that name - that E - was a way of pretending I knew how to do it.

'E.T.' was a healing movie; it was a heart movie. It was all about getting about getting home and love.

I wanted to write stories I wanted to read, that I and my friends related to.

My parents were avid readers. Both had ambitions to write that had been abandoned early in life in order to get on with life.

I decided to write about the myths of divorce.

I had just begun an M.A. in Creative Writing, and I had to write a novel, so I began writing a novel that later became 'A Life Apart.'

I started writing stories in my spare time.

I like stories that affect families.

When I did 'E.T.,' it sort of solidified the only family I know are these film crews. These gypsies. These filmmakers. That was the solidification and the clicking revelations of 'This is what I want to do with my life and this is where I'm going to survive.'