It's a brooding melancholy that haunts me.

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.

I have traveled the entire state and spent a lot of time out of doors. So I have known the landscape of the Columbia Basin for quite a while, and I have had this strong feeling about it for many years.

I was aware that there is an expectation that writers inevitably falter at this stage, that they fail to live up to the promise of their first successful book, that the next book never pleases the way the prior one did. It simply increased my sense of being challenged.

I became paralyzed as an artist with writer's block.

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'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.