Professional Southerners sicken me.

I don't really believe in a creative-writing major as an undergraduate. It's a bad idea, terrible. I've met creative-writing majors from other places and they don't know a goddamn thing. They're the worst students. They just think they're good because they could pass.

I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.

I'll tell you why I like writing: it's just jumping into a pool. I get myself into a kind of trance. I engage the world, but it's also wonderful to just escape. I try to find the purities out of the confusion. It's pretty old-fashioned, but it's fun.

Professional Southerners sicken me.

I wake my wife up at 3 a.m. and say, "Listen to this!"

I don't really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.