As for how I feel about any success I've had, I just feel extremely lucky. Writing is a tough racket, and there are a lot of writers out there better than me who can't seem to catch a break.

I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book.

Part of the reason might be that I was born in 1954 and I look upon my youth with great fondness, like many old men. And, though my work doesn't focus much on good things, I see that period as America's heyday. True, we had many problems, like racism and Vietnam, but we still weren't quite as nuts as we seem to be now.

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.

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.

Some people were born just so they could be buried.

I've never heard of that anthology [Vance Randolph, Pissing in the Snow], but you can be sure I'll buy it now.