I'd say it's never a challenge to present white and heteronormative privilege. The hard thing is to write any other way.

In the rural South, the only interesting people were the sexual deviants. Everybody else was able to be part of the mainstream, and could find a way somehow.

I have known many people who were seduced as children by same-sex partners and then spent their teen years being gay, and then found their way back to heterosexuality as adults.

What's important is the tolerance. If people are not beating other people up, or shooting them for being different, then that's progress. Even if the ideas that go through their head are fodder for novelists.

The interesting artists I know are the ones doing political work. The most interesting people I know are the people who care about politics.

I really like writing in English, and it's the best job I've ever had.

My social status in the last year has gone from zero to hero.