I live in the greatest city in the world for research.

Book clubs are the best thing that has happened to the world of publishing.

But the most precious research to me came from the paperwork filed on behalf of my grandparents and great-grandfather. The ship's manifest showed that they could read and write. I am still emotional when I look at those boxes checked yes.

I come from hardworking, determined people on both sides of my family... the kind who live with a hard reality from which much strength comes.

I used to walk to Altman's on Saturdays for lunch at the Charleston Garden, which had a coconut cake that is still my favorite food in the world.

And when you clear away the cobwebs of the description of every job in the world, at the bottom of that job is service. It's service. And I took that ethic and applied it to my writing craft.