The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.

I took a correspondence course with a guy at Ohio University. He gave me ten exercises, and one of them resulted in the story "Bactine." It pleased me a lot more than anything else I'd ever done, so I kept messing around and by the time I got to Ohio State I'd written maybe eight stories.

I guess music is the one universal art form that most people can be moved by, regardless of where they come from, and for many it might be the closest they get to god, but I think taking a trip out into the country, away from the light pollution, and looking at a clear night sky is what does it best for me.

The biggest influence on my writing, besides snagging some ideas about black humor, was that the paper mill had a program where they paid 75 percent of the tuition and book [costs] for employees who wanted to go to college part-time.

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 had this bad habit of not writing out a first draft and going back. For me it was the first sentence, then the second sentence, and I might be several weeks on the first page instead of writing a draft and trying to figure it out from there.

I'm always doubting my work, even when people are kind enough to say good things. I still have a hard time believing I've written some books, let alone that they've actually done pretty well.