I just thought it was important that people knew right from the jump that I've got problems. But in all seriousness, that's a huge part of my writing process.

I'm a semi-failed writer, but I'm a capital-F Failed musician.

Yes, things happened to me - brutal things - but I'm not going to give them so much clout by dwelling on them, empowering them to haunt my heart years after the events transpired. And no good comes from that. These ghosts don't need us to help them stay alive. If we're after real deal healing, these ghosts must desiccate.

For the book to succeed, it has to have equal parts ugliness and beauty, counterpoints adding up to emotional complexity. To me, there's a dignity in letting your art be emotionally complex.

I used to consider myself to be a cineophile, and then I had a daughter. Ha! Now I barely see any movies.

I always joke that every novel is really about the same thing: one person's struggle against society.

Shamefulness is always a huge part of my characterizations. I like protagonists that reveal, either through "honesty" in their various thought processes or via their actions, perhaps telling us things they're not so keen on disclosing through their interactions with the outside world. Probably both during the duration of a novel.