My mother is an artist, and I have a strong visual sense. I almost always choose the cover art for my books. I've learned that the more I collaborate, like by having someone do a soundtrack to one of my books, the more I see my own work differently.

I have received emails from readers who have said that they were emotionally impacted by the books, and they feel they are more environmentally aware and energized to do more. So that's hopeful to me. It is at least evidence of what I'm trying to do - trying to convey very intense emotional experiences by being very close in on character points of view to make you feel it in your body. That's one way to get the point across, by evoking a visceral response.

It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?

The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what is a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?

So many differing opinions and philosophies... are rarely housed under the roof of a single magazine.

When we wake, it is because something, some event, some pinprick even, disturbs the edges of what we’ve taken as reality.