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.

Ultimately, I felt fortunate, because in many ways I did identify with aspects of being gay that were very stereotypical. I was a big theatre kid in high school, I was creative, I was very emotionally sensitive, even hypersensitive. I loved female divas.

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.

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

The sort of public sex aspects of gay male sexuality did not appeal to me. And it wasn't just a matter of being afraid of them or being too nervous to try them. I did try them and they didn't work for me, they didn't feed me spiritually, they didn't leave me gratified.

If you're doing something, if you're following something that is directly at odds with who you are, you've got to slow down and ask yourself why you're following that dream.

I'm not a literary writer who is wedded to notions of realism and fiction. I believe that you can write anything if you can feel it convincingly.