PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success.

As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

The idea of a talent that was bigger than an artist's ability to choose to use it, that would dictate the artist's life more than the artist could dictate, was interesting to me.

Each source that I read, I would look through the bibliography and the footnotes, and use that as a map for the next thing I would read.

I realized that my identity as a novelist was private. Only I knew how much of a novelist I was!

I was trying to make a novel about something no one wanted to read about into something they couldn't put down or look away from.

Every now and then, you find a book that feels like it was keyed to your DNA.