What I think," Chatty says, "is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.

I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.

Sometimes I can better describe a person by another person's reaction. In a story in my first book, I couldn't think of a way to sufficiently describe the charisma of a certain boy, so the narrator says, "I knew girls who saved his gum."

I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.

I am not quite myself, I think.But who here is quite himself? And yet there is a way in which we are all more ourselves than ever, I suppose.

My job ... I do nothing, it pays nothing, but - you guessed it - it's better than nothing.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.