Art was always for me an escape and a way to relate to the world around me.

The work is where I tend to feel pressure - not so much in the reaction to it.

At DePauw, I was teaching writing and fiction. The things I wanted to teach, more than anything else, were form and theory of the novel, of narrative. I liked those classes.

The Atlantic really gave me my writing career - even just the conviction to be a writer.

If landscape is a character for me, then it helps if I'm familiar with it and I already have a take on it.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be subservient to anyone else's vision.

Whatever story you're telling in Louisiana, the landscape is going to become a character in it.