An hour before his world exploded like a ripe tomato under a stiletto heel, Myron bit into a fresh pastry that tasted suspiciously like urinal cake.

I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain.

Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers." She slapped my back. "Welcome to high school.

What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister; I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia, family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.

There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.

I'd never had money growing up, and it's never been that important to me, except maybe to take our kids on a nice vacation or something like that.

Years fly by, but the heart stays in the same place.