I was an English major in college, I went to a creative-writing program, and all my life, I really read and thought about fiction as a craft and an art form. I feel like I know a lot about it, and can trust my instincts.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

When things don't go well, it helps to think of yourself as a genius and the rest of the world as a bunch of idiots.

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.

A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.