I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.

If anything, he seemed a little lonely, all too ready to open his heart at the slightest sign of interst.

There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it.

You could say that this book is ripped from the headlines, but that wouldn't be fair. Bret Anthony Johnston's riveting novel picks up where the tabloids leave off, and takes us places even the best journalism can't go. Remember Me Like This is a wise, moving, and troubling novel about family and identity, and a clear-eyed inventory of loss and redemption.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.

I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.

Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.