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 was playing sports all the time, growing up. And then, somewhere around 10th or 11th grade, I kind of lost interest in that and just started reading a lot. I didn't know what to read. I didn't have much direction outside of school.

None of my English teachers in college were praising me or telling me I was anything special. But then in creative writing classes they were. And I enjoyed those more anyway.

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.

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.

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.