I think you have an obligation to share what you know as a writer.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

I have relaxed into my persona as an author, although I used to fight that.

Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me.

Post-modernism is dead because it didn't address human needs.

The best advice on writing I've ever received is to take it seriously, because to do it well is all-consuming.

Well, I think it’s extraordinarily fun to write, and I look forward to it every day, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s easy. There’s a difference between the two. It’s fun in the way all worthwhile things are fun – there’s difficulty attached to it. I think that a writer has to accept a certain amount of frustration. It’s inherent in the task, and you have to simply persevere. It’s part of the definition of the work.