I just see in pop culture, music, visual art, books, etc., a real hunger for the new and different, and I think that's amazing. Satisfying this hunger is part of the responsibility of a creative person.

Addiction is a very compelling subject for literature - especially now that it's nearly impossible to come out of adult experience without some addiction - to substances, sure, but also to love, sex, success, failure, power.

I love outsider stories. And I also like a lot of genre fiction, too. So I wanted to write a literary book that flirted with thriller and fantasy and even science fiction. I wanted the coming-of-age story and the love story to be about "outsiderdom" - one of the themes I am most interested in.

I both loved and hated South Pasadena. On the one hand, it was so diverse - all my closest friends were immigrants or had immigrant parents. On the other hand, it was a bit conservative - in a sort of wholesome, Midwestern, small-town sense. I never met a single writer until I moved to New York City for college.

It [9/11 tragedy] has affected us on so many levels: economically, morally, spiritually, ethically. It's been all over the place. A new American identity emerged - we now live in a very different America. This is the power of the definitive event.

My characters' addictions are what makes them a bit stylized or "grotesque" - not just in appearance but through what drives them. Addiction is what threatens stability and normalcy and yet it seems very much a part of being human - at least we are all a bit obsessive and compulsive. Aren't all humans driven by mad desires for one thing or another?

There are so many reasons, but a big reason is that the literary world is simply too white. When there are more professors of color being employed by these institutions maybe there will be some change in the student populations.