Marion Wrenn is the orphaned daughter of itinerant New Jersey Peach pickers and the skeptical sister of a professional psychic.

Half of that is true.

But all of this is: I grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ, AKA Jersey Turnpike Exit 4, AKA home of the Cherry Hill Mall. Desperate for attention, but desperate not to let anyone see that desperation, I spent my formative years in the arcade at the Mall playing Asteroids and smoking Newport cigarettes. My 6-inch bangs were sprayed straight up into a "Jersey Salute" and I eyed the mall rats from Maple Shade to see if they were looking back at me.

My wildly egocentric teenage self lives on in my work with PBQ. The magazine is the sleeper hit, the wallflower who is really a hottie, the babe working really hard at looking like she doesn't have to try. You just need to look hard enough; we just need to catch your eye.

That said, PBQ is the best job I've ever never been paid for. Every time I sit down at an editors' meeting the everday world lifts, shifts, transforms; we talk about a poem, a stanza, a word as if it's the only thing that matters. And every week for the hour or so we're at it, those words-- and the promise of your reading them-- are the only things that do.

Sun sign: Stop Favorite flick: To Live and Die in LA Favorite book: Where the Wild Things Are Ever buy anything from spam mail? Puh-lease. Ever been arrested? If so, for what? Close: Shoplifting lipgloss in the Cherry Hill Mall. I was 13, and was cramming said merchandise into the fiberglass cast I wore for a broken wrist. Nickname: Curtis Cell phone provider? Verizon Craziest thing you'll admit to doing: Ask Kathy Favorite drink? Grape Soda Diner of choice: The Stop Inn, Woodside, Queens. Pet peeve? People who start sentences with, "between you and me..." Best memory? That implies that memories are fixed, and I don't think that's true; they shift, change, warp. In fact this whole quiz implies that we have single answers to these questions, that we can pin them down and that they are un-changing. Several of the editors below take issue with this. Read on. But to answer the question: ask Kathy. Favorite food? Nutter Butters Best time to call? I hate talking on the phone. Secret ambition? To learn to box. Least known fact: Emeril's "bam" was ripped off from my comments about good poems at PBQ meetings: "Bam! Now that's a SONNET!"