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I started to write things down, as a very young child, wanting to find a way to remember - to keep close, somehow - moments that made an impression on me.

You know, I'm trying to sometimes sit down and write some stories about my childhood and maybe one when I'm an old lady put them out like a book.

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

I don't remember my father reading to me, but I remember him telling me bedtime stories. I got to pick what was in them, and then he'd make them up.

I vividly remember my sixth-grade classroom. I remember what it smelled like, where I sat, what I could see out the window, and how I felt about things. Peel away my decrepit middle-aged exterior, and an important part of me is still twelve years old. It helps me when I sit down to write stories for kids.

I was the typical little sister who wanted to be just like her older brother. When I was growing up, my brother wrote phenomenal stories, so I wanted to write them, too.

I began to write, believing that all I had to do to change things would be to write the other side, to tell the stories that I heard from my grandmother.

My mama loved books; I became fascinated by the wonderful stories that came out of these things she held in her hand - and started to make them up myself.

I don't really have childhood-type memories. I had to grow up very young.

In 'A Likely Story,' I wanted to recreate the events, the mood, and the imagery of my life as a teenager. I was thirty-seven when I wrote it.