What's right with America and what's right with Islam have a lot in common. At their highest levels, both worldviews reflect an enlightened recognition that all of humankind shares a common Creator - that we are, indeed, brothers and sisters.
When the others were picked up and walked home by friends or fathers or best friend’s sisters, I was the kid in a grey hoodie, walking with the poets, the singers, the thinkers, and I was not alone.
We arrived the way most emigrant families did. My father came first, and the rest of us - my mother, my sister and me - followed a year later.
My sister discovered the Beatles when she was about 11 and I'm four years younger. So we had nothing but Beatles paraphernalia. Every night I fell asleep to a different Beatles album.
It was natural to see the struggle for dignity for black people in America as a sister struggle of the Jewish struggle. So growing up, it was always a part of my breakfast cereal to think of myself as someone who was part of a larger struggle.
She encouraged any artistic impulse I had, and my father discouraged any artistic impulse I had. They took out their problems with each other on me and my sister.
Two brothers and a sister, my niece, my nephew... we're a very small group. We're very close, very tight-knit. We spend every holiday weekend together.
I was brought up by my mother and my two sisters, although they're older than me and fled the nest very young, so I was technically raised as an only child, but I was very much loved.
Everyone thinks when they start writing that they can't do it. I was lucky. My sister Delia was the most important person in terms of encouraging me.
I was a very imaginative child, and my parents were very encouraging of that. My sister and I would put on plays; I would write my own stories.
We played a festival in Ireland once, and in the middle of 'New Slang,' the Scissor Sisters kicked in across the field on this mega stage. It was a little distracting. It was hard to keep track of what I was supposed to sing.
The other day, I noticed I'd arranged my spices in alphabetical order when I was on the phone, without even realizing, and when I was a kid I was constantly cleaning and organizing things - my toys, my sister's cosmetics.
And then I went to visit my sister in the states and all of a sudden it was just like, it's like... it's like the movie Wizard of Oz when all of a sudden it changes from Black and White to glorious Technicolor.
I don't have any tattoos - I live vicariously through my sister, Langley, who has many. If I can't stick to one ensemble, I don't think I could stick to one tattoo.
I'm of African descent and my sister looks completely black, but I didn't look black. I was the super-nerdy kid who was also willing to fight.
Back in Australia, I did foster care for sick cats for years, and I was always most successful with the animals when I was given two - a brother and sister.
When I was nine, I was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and was prescribed beta blockers, which had the side effect of turning my skin green. Looking like Shrek's little sister at school wasn't the easiest thing.
One thing that always frustrated me was that, while Benjamin Franklin's was the best-known face of the eighteenth century, no one ever took his sister's likeness.
I will say that my days are spent solitary and somewhat lost in thought, and every single time I inadvertently wear my shirt inside out in public, I bump into my sister-in-law at the grocery store.
I read a zombie story, and I have nightmares for days. But my youngest sister loves zombie stories. So when she insisted it was time for Bards and Sages to put together a zombie book, I couldn't tell her 'no.'
Ever since I was really really little, I was just singing all the time. Like one of my favorite games when I was little would be to just have one of my sisters pick a title, and I would impromptu create that song.
