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

I find the constraints of drama actually freeing: It brings everything down to character and action.

I was raised in a heavily Catholic family. Early and consistent encounters with mysticism.

I don't think you can create effectively toward expectation. I'm not in the service business.

The ideas within this philosophy are certainly not exclusive to any writer.

For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand.

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.