How do you get your ideas?
Most of them come from real life, of course, just as the novels of Tolstoy and Flaubert came from newspaper clippings. Unlike other authors, the stories do not come from events in my life or my family; but, eerily, they seem to reflect things that do or have happened in my life. I suppose that is what draws me to them.

Why such sad stories?
I don’t think they’re sad. They challenging. They’re about ordinary people under pressure of extraordinary circumstance. Those pressures reveal people. They reveal character in a way that a great vacation at the beach (unless there is a shark) doesn’t. So while I don’t think I will always write sad stories (in fact, ‘Still Summer’ is more harrowing than emotionally wrought) I write about what’s on my mind and heart – the connections between people, people thrust out of their comfort zones, pity, honor, love, terror (Did I just make that up?)

Where do people “crave” your books?
Australia, the UK and Iowa! I knock ‘em dead there. Clergy are also very drawn to my books, although I’m not conventionally religious.

What’s your dream book?
A great ghost story. I’m going to write one before I die – or shortly thereafter.

Do you think the losses in your life have shaped your fiction?
Well, sure. If I’d had a mother when I lost my husband, or protection from fate (financial security) when my husband died, I might not have felt such a need to save myself … creatively. I felt that staying sane or returning to sane might not have been possible if I hadn’t taken such risks, such as writing a novel with no formal training.

None?
A semester in Creative Writing, the freshman elective, at the University of Illinois… and reading every good book I could. But no, I wasn’t to the page born. My family told many stories; but I’m the first person on either side of my family to graduate high school. Alice Hoffman and I – we’re the ones who aren’t sending out papers to Princeton. She dropped out of high school because she was just too cool. What a renegade heart.

How do you write with seven children?
I neglect them. They now understand this and have begun to forage for their own food.

But really.

The big key is hyper-organization. Each kid has a file. The first page of the file was every pertinent piece of information from the kids Social Security number to the name of the doctor, right there. Each kid has a memory box. We had an item a year, plus a folder of that kid’s best schoolwork, with a letter on the outside. We keep individual and master lists. We keep personal calendars and a mass family calendar for double security. But it isn’t an institution. I really talk to every kid every day, even Rob, who’s 22 and on his own now, working for the mass platform cyber-reality Second Life and starting school to do mass platform gaming. We e-mail five times a day; and sometimes the e-mails get philosophical. The other day at the doctor, I was finishing a phone call in which I was telling one of my sons, ‘The person who wins the argument appears to have the moral high ground but doesn’t, necessarily…’ and the doctor said, ‘It’s ten a.m.!” My kids complain about me. They say I’m ‘content-based.” But I love to goof around. Sitting outside with my kids and my brother, telling stories about the really nuts things that happened to us growing up on the west side of Chicago in the ‘60s, it’s the best fun we have. My brother, an engineer, is a better storyteller than I am. And he knows it.

You were open about having an identity theft.
Yes, I was, simply because so many people believe that if they are careful enough, nothing like this could happen to them. But I was ripped off by a relative and she later married declared bankruptcy and married a multi-millionaire. She has no regrets. But I lost two college educations for my kids.

Other that that, you have a pretty ordinary life.
It’s less than ordinary. It would be boring if I didn’t escape to stir up the lives of imaginary people.

What do you think of the Oprah experience?
Because I was the first one, my experience was different. I didn’t know it was going to be this huge, number-one bestseller, although I knew that Miss Winfrey could transform people into vegetarians with a sentence! And so, for me it was even more of a gift, a surprise and a delight, to meet people for whom The Deep End of the Ocean was the first book they’d read since high school, for example. It touched my heart that this book changed their lives. They call it the first of Oprah Winfrey’s ‘inspirational women’ stories; but The Deep End of the Ocean was filled with troubled and deeply ambivalent characters. It’s not Cormac McCarthy; and I don’t want to be Cormac McCarthy.

Who do you want to be?
Ruth Rendall.

What’s your all-time favorite novel?
‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ by Betty Smith. It’s always thought of as a middle-grade book; but it’s filled with truly gritty accounts of the immigrant experience, from death by alcoholism to the molestation of a child. How simply and elegant it is. It’s just simply amazing what she did. In fact, my daughter’s name is Francie Nolan.

Who’s your favorite male character?
Atticus Finch. Hey I have a kid named that, too! (Atticus Stuart Brent).

How about a female character?
Charlotte A. Cavatica.

Are all your children named after characters in fiction?
They are, except for my first son, who’s named after my brother, who’s only a character.

What are your hobbies?
HOBBIES?

What’s your favorite thing to do?
I love to SCUBA dive, although I’m a little afraid to go back into the water after writing ‘Still Summer.’

What do you think the greatest invention of the century is?
In-vitro fertilization and styling gel.

Why have you begun writing fiction for young adults? Isn’t one genre enough?
It wasn’t for the money, that’s for sure! I love the chances I can take, the ways I can go dark and light. The borders aren’t so visible. It’s just too much fun to stop!

If you could change one thing with a snap of your fingers, what would it be?
Religious bigotry.

If you could relive one moment, what would it be?
Seeing my first son’s ultrasound picture.

If you could come back as anything other than a person, what would it be?
A whale. I just know they’re having fun, because things are much better down where it’s wetter.

What makes you cry?
Kirkus reviews and hearing my son Marty sing, but for different reasons.

What makes you laugh?
Hearing all the other kids sing Marty’s musical theatre songs.