I don't believe in the art-for-art's-sake philosophy. With the raw material before me and the gifts within me, I did my best to celebrate the voices and intelligence and sweetness and dreams of the children in spite of their chaotic, outer worlds.

After the phone call from The New Yorker, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But then I told God I would talk to Him another time and darted home.

Though people are more important than money, I'm not convinced these large sums of money paid out to victims is the best. Listening to the some of the victims, I think we could have avoided a lot of this if the Church had humbly apologized to them, but we tried to bully some of them. I pray the victims are healed.

Maybe if we can find time to hug and cherish our families and the people around us, child suicide or college suicide wouldn't be rampant.

I believe artists should be able to step into other people's situations, contexts and cultures and work from there. If artists don't have that freedom, then, as someone has said, are we all writing our autobiographies?

I have been very afraid of writing about other cultures and countries. I've been worried about getting the research wrong. I ask a lot of questions. I try to visit the area. If I'm not able to do that, I search out people from that country who live elsewhere and ask questions.

I always felt my writing could benefit from the attention of established writers. I knew my work could grow and be better.

I'd say my religious life has shaped my worldview my writing, I'd say too, is an extension of the pulpit...it reaches folks who don't care for organized religion in a different way.

I believe that Jesus was both priest and poet. Imagine those powerful parables! My experience as a priest tells me it's not possible to reach the hearts of the congregants without a bit of poetry and storytelling.

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.