It never occurred to me to write anything that didn't include gay characters in it.

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.

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

I think we need to always mimic reality in our fiction. I think that we can stir things up and reveal a truth beneath the surface in that way as well.

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.

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.

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.