A poor white woman from the South is different than a poor black woman from the South, and has a completely different experience.

I, as the writer, can be very clear that I am writing a work of heightened fiction, as opposed to documenting horrible things that happen every day in the world. Which I have no interest in doing.

One of the things that I always think about is the emotional sophistication of animals and how much we're learning about the emotional sophistication of animals. If you're eating a pig, you're essentially eating the equivalent of a four-year-old human being.

I had always loved horror films, so I wanted to do something in the horror genre but wanted it to be sweet and charming at the same time. Because there's a difference between watching horror, where you can leave it behind, and writing horror, where you have to live in it for months and months at a time.

I love the supernatural in storytelling. The Twilight Zone was a huge influence on me, in terms of writing and storytelling, where you're not restricted to the parameters of reality to tell your tale.

I went to school to be a psychiatrist. That's where I was going until I had a teacher-student conference with one of my teachers and there were film school pamphlets, and he said, "You don't belong here. Get out. Go to film school."

As an insecure writer, I'll finish a scene and worry there's a better version of it. Or it could be elevated somehow.