I didn't play or like a lot of board games as a child. I liked playing with my G.I. Joes and making up adventures for them.

From age 23 to 44 - I'm 45 now - I was always in need of money, and I was especially in need of it from 23 to about 34, and my great aunt would always give me money, a hundred bucks, every two months or so, and a lot of times that hundred bucks made a huge difference - I could eat or pay a small bill. It kept me going. She gave me money. It was very loving.

For me, books have always been a way to feel less alone while being alone. Perhaps if I was depressed and isolated, just communicating with these authors through their sentences helped me.

It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.

As a child, I wanted to be an athlete, a professional tennis player or something like that.

I don't really know the person who wrote the things I wrote. I kind of know him, but I change so much all the time that it's like I start fresh over and over and over and over. Writing-wise and life-wise.

I grew up in northern New Jersey - the banlieue of New York - and I now live in Brooklyn. I am separated from my parents by about 50 miles, but really there is almost no distance between us. I speak to them nearly every day.