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

It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.

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.

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.

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.

I was also known as Frodo because I was an early adopter of 'The Lord of the Rings.