"She attended Sarah Lawrence and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop before she began producing nonfiction pieces for Seventeen magazine and Bridal Guide. To make ends meet, she waited tables at T.G.I. Fridays.
She may be a bestselling novelist now, but she has no illusions about her achievements. "I hate 'Run,' " she confesses. "And I hate 'Bel Canto'! Sometimes I can't find a passage in them that I recognize. . . . I'm a bit like a turtle: Once I drop that egg, I crawl away. It doesn't cross my mind again."