I'm not one of these people who thinks everyone born into privilege should wear sack cloth and ashes. But it's something I wrestle with. I know a lot of people who live below the poverty level and have for a long time and it makes them uneasy to think they'll have to interact with people from different economic levels. Everyone has some sort of load put on them, whatever the circumstances they're born into.

I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.

Love and hate hold hands always so it made natural sense that they'd get confused by upset married folk in the wee hours once in a while and a nosebleed or bruised breast might result. But it just seemed proof that a great foulness was afoot in the world when a no-strings roll in the hay with a stranger led to chipped teeth or cigarette burns on the wrist.

Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go.

The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.

There's an overlap between social-realist fiction and crime fiction - a sweet spot there.

I felt like a number of things in me as a writer just clicked.