I went to an all-girls pre school where everyone went off to Harvard or Yale, and I had zero interest in doing so. I think they thought I was on drugs. There was a neighboring all-boys school, so we'd get together and do dumb things. It was your typical Catholic-American upbringing.
Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing. I know that I have wanted very much to write books that are accessible to the widest audience possible.