I had an idea to write something set back around the Civil War era, but I was just way too ignorant to think I could start it any time soon.

It didn't occur to me that I could be a writer until college. I saw all these people around me training to be doctors, or historians, or C.E.O.'s or whatnot, and I thought, Maybe I want to be a writer.

I know people who are really talented at writing, and they just don't ever make it happen because they're also good at other things.

Sometimes I would take Nietzsche or something. And I wouldn't read it, but more just scan the words. Sometimes I would get whatever the popular thing at the time was. I don't know, something like Bret Easton Ellis. It was just a very random, inefficient education.

I had an idea to write something set back around the Civil War era, but I was just way too ignorant to think I could start it any time soon.

It's nice not to have to worry about applying for things. It's really a different existence.

The first time I took a fiction writing class was sophomore year. And I just found myself taking that extremely seriously, in a way that I didn't take anything else seriously. So I guess that was the start of it.