Madness, as I understood it from books, meant a person who was open to the high white whine of everything.

I tended to be drawn to the weirder, darker stuff. Horror and sci-fi anthologies.

For me, the term "literary fiction" means there's always attention paid to language, and linguistic experimentation, sophistication.

I hope that in my thirties I grow as a writer, push into new territory.

I swim with all my strength. No superhuman surge, or pony heroics; it's just me at my most desperate.

My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly.

So much of the way books get classified has to do with marketing decisions. I think it's more useful to think of literary books and sci-fi/fantasy books as existing on a continuum.