Writing about your community is difficult for any writer.

Our ability to factory farm animals is coldly psychopathic.

If I gave up writing, I'd have to find an equally obsessive way to fill my time. Yarn-bombing skyscrapers or making houses out of empty soda bottles.

I don't see the point of pretending we're clones.

I think we're in a 1970s-level moment of social transition and they're always full of upheaval. As violent and deranged as we can be to each other and to other species, we've got nothing on tsunamis, hurricanes or tornadoes.

I was born on the same day as Edgar Allan Poe and Dolly Parton: January 19. I am absolutely certain that this affects my writing in some way.

I think the best advice I got was to not worry about what other people would think while you were working on your first draft. Focus on getting it out of your head. You can always edit the manuscript later.