I usually have a location and then I put the character there. I love place names. I think I'm tricking myself by being so specific - it suddenly becomes real to me. Just because I say it's Chicago, Illinois doesn't mean it's true, but place names sort of make me grounded and then I can put some people there.

Actually, you’re not famous at all. Maybe you’ll get some traction after you’re dead?

I think some writers should wait for something to say.

My characters tend to be people who are looking back on a life lived, their joys, their regrets.

I write when I have something to say and not when I don't. My time is better spent if I know I have nothing to say. I don't consider it writer's block; I just don't have anything to say.

I'm pretty tight - I rewrite, in some cases, 70 to 80 times before I show it to people.

I think what I'm after, a lot of the time, is just honesty. What accounts for the fact that the stories we tell ourselves - the story we carry around and think of most often - are the dark ones? Maybe we have to wander around in the darkness to understand it?