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I was a horrible student. I really hated school.

I was a terrible English student.

I wasn't a very good student in elementary school and had a hard time with reading and writing.

I was rather a poor student, too easily distracted - did a lot of gazing out of windows, fine for training to be a writer, but not a great way to achieve in the classroom. The truth is that I was happy to bumble along and do enough to avoid detention, but not much more.

I was a terrible reader as a kid. I mean terrible. Super slow and very unfocused. It took me forever to read a book, and I remember being well into high school and still needing my mom to sit down and read aloud to me so I could pass my English tests and such.

I was a decent student but not a great student.

One of the great privileges of my life was growing up in a house without books.

The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!

It got so bad that by the time I was graduated, the only reading I did was in order to get the grade and the only writing I did was in order to get the grade.

I like to tell students, 'I didn't burst on to the literary scene.' I'm never good at things at the beginning. I was terrible at the start. I need to work and work.