Id always been a big reader, and I loved books, and I always thought writing would be a great way to get by in the world.

I look upon [writing about religion] as a nice way to get by in this precarious world, though I've never been able to do it myself.

I do believe the world is a pretty sad, troubled, and violent place. Maybe that's why I focus on the trouble. Even though there are good people and good things, there's also a bunch of messed up stuff. And I learned early on, you have to have some trouble in your stories. I definitely go overboard on that, but I have a lot more fun writing about the trouble.

When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working.

I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.

I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].

It was really just the name that inspired me: Rainsboro. It's located near Rocky Fork State Park. I have probably driven through that little place a thousand times, but, in that weird way my mind works sometimes, one particular evening it just hit me the right way, I guess. Created a mood more than anything else. And then I started thinking about a woman and her young son who end up there.