I am very interested in place, and the influences of place on characters.

In the mess of moving from place to place, I skipped two grades in the space of one year.

When I was eight years old, I wrote a paragraph-long short story about a goat on my mother's hundred-pound, black-and-white-screen laptop. The story came about largely because I liked the way the word 'goat' looked on the page, but I decided then and there that I wanted to be a writer. That desire never changed.

What inspires me most to write is the act of traveling.

I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.

Suddenness," he says. " You do not prepare, you do not explain, you do not apologize. Suddenly, you go. And with you, you take all contemplation, all consideration of your own departure. All the suffering that would have come from knowing comes after you are gone, and you are not a part of it.

death should be celebrated...when you put something in the ground you always know where it is