In a way, I think we all want to look to that journalistic voice as a kind of global omniscience, a big eye to correct for our own limited purview: "Here's a realistic accounting of the world in which we live."

Sometimes, when you're writing sentence by sentence, you're not really sure what footprints you're going to fall into, or what ghosts might appear.

I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line. It's a weird way to move forward. It's kind of like a way to caterpillar your way through these great woods. The best ones, whatever I feel like I'm writing about, some other secret thing will begin to come into focus.

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

Myth continues to be a valuable way to understand parts of our nature that we can't quantify.

I spent most of my 20s with these alligator wrestlers in the swamps of South Florida.

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