Everyone has an identity crisis when they are 16 or 17 years old.

I played the clarinet, and my sister played the violin... If wed had the discipline and the passion, maybe we could have been good.

My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.

It makes me think of Lazarus. He must have had those shadows after his miracle. You don't spend time in the tomb without it changing you, and everyone who was waiting for you to come out.

I never had a connection like that to anyone, where every day you think about what you’ll tell them and you wonder what they’re doing, and you know they’re wondering what you’re doing.

It's hard to say when my interest in writing began, or how. My mother read to my sister and me every night, and we always loved playing make-believe games. I had a well-primed imagination. I didn't start thinking about writing as a serious pursuit, a career I could have, until after college.

We'd need a miracle," he says. "A real one. Do you think those happen anymore?