I have a book in the pipeline of short stories. You want to hear an agent scream, say 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.

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

Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.

For a long time, I thought you could remain isolated and survive, and I didn't want to change that. But over the last three or four books, I've become more comfortable with the idea that I'm not really throwing anything away by being a bit more open about my books and life.

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

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

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.