The thing that made me turn more towards writing was realizing how hard it was going to be to get a singular vision on film and how much more control I would have if I were writing novels.

I've had a lot of different lives. I was adopted, I grew up in Nebraska, and then I went to Northwestern... Then I had this really extraordinary, different life than my parents.

I still think about the writers I loved when I was a kid.

Imaginative empathy is one of the great gifts that humans have, and it means that we can live more than one life. We can picture what it would be like from another perspective.

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.

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

It had occurred to him that if the undead don't realize that they are dead, he might easily be one of them himself.