And if we’re talking about hard-boiled detectives, too, what could be more hardboiled than the worldview of Ligotti or Cioran? They make the grittiest of crime writers seem like dilettantes. Next to The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Mickey Spillane seems about as hard-boiled as bubble gum.

You just do the best you can, and when you're able to connect with people, and when you do, it's just incredibly gratifying.

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

I was raised by television. It was my first cultural window. It was a constant companion.

As someone with a novelistic background, I just didn't have much interest in creating stories by committee. I don't think you necessarily get the best story through that approach.

Some people, no matter where they look, they see themselves.

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