First drafts are never any good - at least, mine aren't.

I've worked with homeless kids, kids in foster care, and I've never met a kid who couldn't be reached.

I was a screenwriting and studio art major in college, so even though I don't have any training as a floral designer, I have a very particular visual aesthetic.

There aren't always, especially in low-income communities, the arts and the dance and the drama and the things that can really show a kid, 'Look, even if I'm three years behind in math, there's something I'm good at that can help me be successful in life.'

I am not only the person who wrote and sold a novel while raising a houseful of biological and foster children; I am also the person who wrote a horrific young adult novel that never sold and gave up on a foster child I couldn't handle - an experience that still haunts me.

I have spent a lot of time with foster children over the years - kids for whom I have not necessarily acted as a foster parent.