Ann Hood started writing when she was 7 or 8. "The local library had this weird rule that if you were under 12 you could only take out one book a week," she says. "So I wrote stories to keep myself occupied." Now, she writes for three hours every day while her children are in school.

Hood, 44, lives in Providence, Rhode Island. She is the author of seven novels, including Somewhere off the Coast of Maine (Bantam Books, 1987) and Ruby (Picador, 1998). Last year she published Do Not Go Gentle (Picador), a nonfiction book about miracles. When Hood reads from the book, people in the audience often approach her afterwards. "They come up to me and say —like they had a dirty secret—I had a miracle. It’s rarely some grand gesture, but to that person, it was important and life changing."

Since finishing the book, Hood says she’s come to "a peace, an agreement," with miracles. "I’m more readily accepting of them on a daily basis," she says. "Miracles can be part of the ordinary."