Usually at the core of fiction that has some element of the absurd there tends to be an examination of some societal ills that we should talk about more than we do. And it's funny, of course, so we have that release valve with absurdism. It offers us a safe way to explore difficult subject matter.

I don't see the direct correlation between my personal life and the novel I'm writing until I'm at the end of the novel or very close to it.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you know you have to hit the ground running.

Fundamentally I think we all write the kinds of work we'd most like to read. Or we try to.

As I get older, I'm finding that I recognize certain celebrities only because they frequently grace the pages of US Weekly, but beyond that, I have no idea what they do.

Usually at the core of fiction that has some element of the absurd there tends to be an examination of some societal ills that we should talk about more than we do. And it's funny, of course, so we have that release valve with absurdism. It offers us a safe way to explore difficult subject matter.

My mom was a big Elvis fan and a general pop culture buff, and so I grew up in a house filled with what were then called "movie magazines,"Before Elvis when Rhona Barrett wrote her column about the stars. And so it seeped in.