Writing a short story is a little like walking into a dark room, finding a light and turning it on. The light is the end of the story.

Writing short stories was kind of like I was cheating the whole time, in some way. I went back and forth between writing the novels and sort of sneaking out to work on stories occasionally. These stories were written over the last 10 years or so, as I was taking breaks from the novels I've written.

You can't count on notoriety lasting very long, and there's no way to predict whether anyone will care about your books or you in three years, let alone ten or twenty.

I think at a certain point the book develops a certain weight, or pressure. You've been pushing the rock up the hill for a long time and then it starts to roll and things do start to come together in the last two thirds.

I tend to like order in almost every other aspect of my life, but for me, the process of writing is really chaotic and decadent and indulgent.

The happiest I have ever been is in the life that I led with my wife and kids.

I'm certainly very influenced by what you would call 'contemporary headline horror,' stuff that is true crime or for one reason or another catches our attention in the media, those strange cases that we end up obsessing about. I'm always influenced by weird anecdotes and news.