We live, we die. Somewhere along the way, if we're lucky, we may find someone to help lighten the load.

I came to Houston for a job, the reason most people move halfway across the country with a first grader and a five-week-old. I came here to teach at Rice.

I have any number of completely dark obsessions and fascinations, and none of this was present in my profile or my growing profile as a writer.

It's different being afraid when there's the hope it will amount to something.

She remembered no one at all. She remembered one day thinking: I am alone. There is no I but I. She lived in the dark. She taught herself to walk in the light, though it was not easy.

And I had always liked vampire stories because they are great material that can be refashioned in lots of ways.

Don't we all deserve forgiveness? I hope we do; I believe we do. Forgiveness says as much about the character of the person bestowing it as the person receiving it. Learning to forgive may be the most difficult of human acts,and the closest thing to divinity, whatever you decide that is.