Siri Hustvedt

As one of four daughters, I grew up with an imaginary brother - wondering what it would have been like if one of us had been a boy. There's no question that there was a phantom boy child in my imagination when I was young.

Critics might contend that putting former private-sector CEOs in the president's Cabinet places the fox in the henhouse. But it's unlikely such executives would expose themselves to the headaches if they weren't genuinely motivated by the call to service.

I don't write directly on to the computer because I don't think well facing forward with fingers on a keyboard. I think better looking down holding a pen. And the concentration quotient of pen and paper is higher than when I'm moving words around on screen.