When my mother talked about her brother, there was this light in her eyes. I thought, 'This is the basis of a novel.'
I had a fairly regular childhood. I was a pretty boring kid. I didn't do much. I was always thinking, but I didn't really say a lot.
Your memories from your early childhood seem to have such purchase on your emotions. They are so concrete.
When I became a father, all that stuff rose up again from the back of my mind. I suddenly realised how uninvolved my father had been in my life.
I do remember being young.
When I was a little kid, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about what I'd wish for if a magic fairy gave me three wishes. First, I wanted to be loved. Then, I wanted to be beautiful. And, finally, I'd wish for a million more wishes.
In my own one-woman show, 'Feeling Good,' I talk about my childhood and write a letter to my younger self in the show. The most important thing I would tell her is to trust my instincts. Just trust them. They're little whispers from God, I think. You've heard it a million times, but it's true: Listen to that inner voice.
I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.
There isn't much of a music scene in Hermann, unless you like polka. But the landscape I grew up in is a part of me. I spent a lot of time in the woods doing a lot of nothing to break the boredom.
