When I first went to New York I was right out of high school, I was 17 years old, and I had never seen a building over two stories high.

I started acting when I was in high school, started writing when I got to New York in 1975.

I went to acting school in New York City for two years. I studied with Stella Adler.

It's a brave new world. I'm 42 years old. I certainly wasn't out in high school.

I became a teacher all right. I wanted to become a teacher because I had a misconception about it. I didn't know that I'd be going into - when I first became a high school teacher in New York, that I'd be going into a battle zone, and no one prepared me for that.

I grew up in New York City. In elementary school, I was a charter member of the Scribble Scrabble Club, and in high school, my poems were published in an anthology of student poetry.