I've left the Church - for many reasons that I've written about publicly - but it's still a large part of my identity, and I still have my faith, if not my Church.

Weakness, like not being able to bury the past. Weakness, like not giving up hope when you know you should.

You learn to exploit genre for the more important things - to my mind - like story, character, image, language.

I prefer true over happy now.

While I was in college becoming a good Catholic I was also becoming a writer - one haunted by Catholicism.

If you look at the world one way, it takes from you - it's a thief of time, energy, creative mojo. But if you look at the world another way, it gives you an endless supply of motivation.

I believe we're brutes, but then, miraculously, there are those among us who stand up against that brutishness and remind us of the goodness we're capable of.