KAREN M. McMANUS

KAREN M. McMANUS

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NYTimes Bestselling Author of Nothing More to Tell, One of Us is Lying

Well, I had a wonderful teacher in second grade who kind of inspired me to start writing and really stuck with me through elementary school and beyond as I made attempts to find my voice, but think part of the reason it never really went anywhere for me as a young person was because I was too afraid to share that with anyone except for that one teacher. I never showed friends. I didn't even really show family. I just always felt that it wasn't quite good enough. And so the thing I always tell writers now if they ask for, you know, "What's one tip?" It's let someone else tell you no, because I just told myself no for pretty much my entire young adulthood. And once I let other people tell me no, they did a lot, you know, but that is how I got better.

JACK HORNER

JACK HORNER

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Renowned Dinosaur Paleontologist
Technical Advisor on all Jurassic Park / Jurassic World Films

I found my first fossil when I was six years old. And I found my first dinosaur bone when I was eight, my first dinosaur skeleton when I was 13. When I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a paleontologist, and I didn't think there was much hope for it, though. I was doing very poorly in school. I think I was always a pretty positive kid. And so even though I wasn't doing well in school, I was really happy about the fact that I was finding all these cool fossils, and I was making collections. I don't know when it came to me that I would do this, but I think I just was born this way.

WILLIAM IRVINE

WILLIAM IRVINE

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Author of The Stoic Challenge & A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Happiness is another interesting thing. I've been thinking about this lately. You know, people take aim at happiness. I don't know if you can actually do that, if you can have a recipe for attaining happiness. Happiness is something that just happens as a byproduct of something else going on in your life, and that is having a day where you're experiencing equanimity. You don't have this abundance of negative emotions, where you value the things you've already got, where you value the relationships you've got, where you feel good inside your own body. You like being who you are. And I think, if all that happens, then suddenly, you know, it'll dawn on me. 'Gosh, I guess I'm happy...'