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By junior high, I was a horrible student. But during my sophomore year of high school, I did have a fabulous English teacher, and I would go to school just for her class and then skip out afterwards. That's actually when I started writing, although I didn't think of it then as something I might someday do.

I was a good student. My mom is a teacher, and her side of the family is all teachers. She put a big emphasis on getting good grades.

I wasn't that over-the-top, but I got sent to the principal in first grade for talking. And my father was for a long time the president of the Board of Education. That was always a hard note to bring home.

Grades were important in our house. I was reading by two. My mom would sit there and read with me, read with me, read with me. It was wonderful.

I had decent but not great grades in high school because I was highly motivated in some subjects, like the arts, drama, English, and history, but in math and science I was a screw-up. Wooster saw something in me, and I really flourished there. I got into theatre, took photography and painting classes.

Grade school, middle school and high school were relatively easy for me, and with little studying, I was an honor student every semester, graduating 5th in my high school class.

I made good grades in school.

You know, I went to Oberlin. At that time, grades were - you elected to have them or not. It was all of that era where grades were out the window. But I did very well in school. I didn't really study the arts; I practiced the arts.