I think that I am profoundly influenced by writers who have explored loss, and longing, and fear. Those influences have turned me into a thriller writer, essentially.

Honestly, in retrospect, I would wish for future generations to have the ability to have a coming out process that was less alcohol-soaked than mine was.

Look at any city through the right memories and it could become a graveyard as haunted as a former battlefield.

I think there are profound differences between the civil rights struggle for African Americans and the civil rights struggle for gay Americans.

I had seen the gay social chronicle done abundantly and done very well. And I didn't want to do any more of that myself, I wanted us to be included in the popular mainstream of entertainment fiction.

Usually when I put my focus on the pacing, the plot, the specific characterizations, - it's ironic - but then I actually increase my chances of writing something that moves people because I haven't become too self-conscious of the goal.

My experience of coming out was very much centered around the bar scene. And what happened for me is that when I turned 18 and was old enough to get into certain gay bars in the French Quarter, I became a regular customer.