Mom's On the Loose:

Question:
In Mom's on the Loose, was your dog really blue?
Jim T. Naples, Florida

Answer:
Actually she was salt and pepper. Her favorite food was beer nuts, and she really did try to sing "Great Balls of Fire."

Question:
How long did it take you write this book?
Gloria B., Little Rock, Arkansas

Answer:
50 years, since the memories start in 1949 when I was five. Add that up and you will know that I am over 30 and should know better than to do a lot of what I still do, such as jump on my horse from the top rail of a fence. I go to bed with the chickens every night, though.

Question:
Are your kids mad at you for writing any part of this book?
Carol M., Barnsly England & Gainesville, Florida

Answer:
Actually they're glad when I'm writing anything, since when I'm working I'm out of their hair. Seriously, though, Mom's On the Loose is more about motherhood than about my kids, and they are grateful for whichever stories are included in this book that preserve their childhoods and a sense of the great fun we had.

Queen of October:

Question:
My name is Lorena, and I am from Mexico City. I am living now in a boarding school in Virginia and am a freshman in high school. I just read The Queen of October and am writing a paper on it for my class. I think it is such a wonderful book and seems so real to me. My best friend's parents got a divorce, and there were some things that I could not understand. After reading this book, I understand the feelings. The thing that I loved about the book was the language and reading about the South. How did you know so much about it is like when a family breaks up?
Lorena, Mexico City

Answer:
I read as much of the research that was available at the time, which was in the mid 80's. Not much then was known about what exactly kids were feeling when their parents broke-up. While I was doing this research, my daughter was in the eighth grade and was a "facilitator" at her school-- which means that she met with a small group of kids about once a week to discuss personal things that were happening in their lives. My daughter told me that often kids came to school and said that the night before their parents had told them that they were getting divorced. The one thing that worried these kids the most was finding an answer to this question: if love could die between their mother and father, couldn't it also die between them and their parents-- in other words, between parent and child? My goal in writing The Queen of October was to answer this question for all those who were haunted by it.

Question:
I have recently read The Queen of October for a research paper on southern literature. I enjoyed it so much; it was hard to put down. Your novel made my research easier to do, because I was writing about a story that was fun and exciting to read. I especially liked the character, Toulouse, and how he would help serious situations become funny. How did you come up with him?
Heather, SC

Answer:
Toulouse came totally out of my imagination, though I owned parakeets when I was a child and was intrigued by the idea of birds who could talk. Even though I tried desperately to get my parakeets to say anything, they never did. But I think I have always wanted something, if not a bird, in the background comically commenting on whatever was happening in my life, and when I was writing The Queen of October this memory came to me--so why not have a forty-five-year-old parrot say what really needed to be said.

Replacing Dad :

Question:
In Replacing Dad, what made you want to tell this story.
Heather, Tallahassee

Answer:
My neighbor and I were raising boys at the same time. We'd sit in the driveway and watch them ride big-wheels and such, and one day, when our boys were about eleven, my friend told me this amazing story. A year before, her husband had left the family for a younger woman--a typical situation of his having fallen in love with his secretary, yada yada, and etc. etc.--and now my friend said her son was having trouble sleeping. He finally confided in her that he stayed awake at night worrying about her and his sister's safety--that he listened for burglars, checked for fires, for any disaster at all. He felt responsible for the welfare of the whole family. This story was so poignant to me--and of course I had watched this boy grow up and felt very close to him--I simply had to tell this story.

Question:
Is Replacing Dad set in Cedar Key, Florida?
Pat S., Cedar Key, Florida

Answer:
I rented a house in Cedar Key and took background notes for nearly a year. So yes, my imaginary town of Palm Key is indeed based on Cedar Key. But you can tell it isn't totally Cedar Key, because I needed a stop light and a Burger King. The dog being written up in the newspaper for lying out in the street and being declared an official speed-bump is true, however--straight out of the Cedar Key weekly paper.