I think what shaped me was I had two parents who were scientists, and especially, they were great readers. They had both grown up in sort of rural parts of the South and were oddballs where they grew up. They were budding intellectuals.
I was raised Unitarian, and my mother said she took us to church so that we wouldn't get religious later in life.
Science fiction writers, when I was a kid, were a big deal.
An elephant funeral makes me weep every time, and so does an ad with a kid leaving home for college.
Human love and desire is my bag.
I'm not despairing of love at all.
