I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.

It's very easy for me to feel sympathy for people who are messed up. It's not that I'm a pseudo-saint or a great person. I had a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol when I was younger, and I know how easy it can be to mess up the rest of your life. One bad turn, one bad night, one big mistake, and everything is screwed up. Or maybe you were just born in the wrong house and raised in a bad way. I guess I can understand.

[Degree in English] gave me a little more self-confidence, to know that I'd managed to complete something like that.

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.

J.R. Angelella is a truly gifted writer. Zombie is one of the smartest, strangest, and most beautifully crafted coming-of-age stories you will ever encounter.

Michael Koryta is an amazingly talented writer, and I rank The Prophet as one of the sharpest and superbly plotted crime novels I've read in my life.

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