I think back when I was kind of a crappy writer, I really did know my time was better spent working and having adventures and seeing the world.

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

I love investigating the natural world, and I find a lot of truths there, truths about survival and beauty - nature continually surprises me (amazing how clever a woodchuck is, amazing how plants roots can break up concrete, amazing how delicious the thimbleberry is!).

I enjoy shooting. Around where I live, it's something you do for entertainment once in a while, you go out and shoot targets.

I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I've been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I've been pretty lucky.

I thought that you had to learn to write by yourself and if you couldn't do it, then you were out of luck.

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.