I was always a big reader, even when everything was bad and miserable.

The humor I came up with is, for the most part, a bit crude or guttural, and many people aren't going to get it or enjoy it, but some do, and that means a lot to me - to know that I made someone laugh.

I started going to Ohio University when I was in my mid-thirties, ended up with an English degree when I was forty.

I sort of like writing about weird characters, I guess.

I don't think writing fiction has changed my worldview.

I really have no idea what the French think of my characters, or why The Devil All the Time did so well there.

One of the reasons I write about religion is due to my own envy of people who truly feel the presence of god in their lives, good souls who believe devoutly in a supreme being and an afterlife.