Two dads have sent me letters that said my books changed their daughters' lives. I send them packages with T-shirts and posters because, come on... that's the coolest.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I get a lot of mail from boys in detention centers, including one from a center where they only had a few copies of my novel. They had a deal with each other that they'd read a couple of chapters and then slide it under the door to the next guy. I think that's very cool.
Soon after publishing a book for kids, my mailbox began to fill with letters from children all across America. Not because my novels for young readers are bestsellers - they're not by a long shot - but because today's kids love to write to authors.
Hands down, the biggest thrill is to get a letter from a kid saying, I loved your book. Will you write me another one?
Both my mum and dad were great readers, and we would go every Saturday morning to the library, and my sister and I had a library card when we could pass off something as a signature, and all of us would come with an armful of books.
My most cherished possessions are my grandma's letters and my vintage Martha Washington cookbook.
My husband wrote me love letters while I was on location in Canada and pregnant. They turned into being about food, and it turned it into a cookbook. He called it 'The Tuscan Cookbook for the Pregnant Male.' It was kind of genius. When I took it a book agent, he was like, 'Men don't buy cookbooks.'
I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long.
With my first book, 'A Letter to a Young Brother,' I figured it would be my only book I was ever going to write. What happened with that is a lot of young men would reach out to me.
I've thought of publishing a book of my hate mail, but I don't own the rights to the letters.
I get wonderful letters from kids and teachers. I must have the best readers in the world.