I loved writing for the school newspaper. I liked to report and interview people, but I really liked to write columns, funny columns.

Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar.

After a year, it was great to get out of L.A. and return to Hyde Park. Since my grandparents lived in Hyde Park, I had been coming there since I was a tyke.

I do different work, teaching and running around visiting universities and bookstores, and that prevents me from writing. But it's nice to be wanted as a writer.

I figure that I'm always going to be fine, one way or another, but I do worry about other people who have difficulty moving from one world to the next. It's the folks who are truly invested in their lives who have the hardest time with change.

Mostly the natural landscapes work as a sounding board for my characters, so they can understand themselves, and it acts as a mirror in which we readers see ourselves. The natural world is the place into which all my characters have to situate themselves in order to be who they really are, and that makes my rural fiction feel different from a lot of urban fiction.

I'm of the people in the bar and the people in my stories. They are my tribe.