Peter Heller

I just love when the learning curve is steep. And I love being in nature, in the wild.

I had to make a living, so I got happily diverted into writing about expeditions and adventures.

New Zealand is weird. I mean, it does not seem of this earth, not to me. It really is like something made up.

I'm fascinated by characters who are faced with big losses and have to put their lives back together again.

My dad was a copywriter on Madison Avenue at the same time as the TV show 'Mad Men' is set. My mom raised the kids and was a scholarship coordinator at a school. More importantly, dad was a writer and my mom an artist.

The great thing about being young and dumb is that you don't know what you can't do.

The great thing about fiction is that everything you care about ends up going into the book.

Writing, to me, is like kayaking a river. You are paddling down, and you come to a walled-off canyon, and you make a sharp turn, and you don't know what's around the corner. It could be a waterfall, it could be a big pool. The narrative current carries you. You're surprised, and you're thrilled, and sometimes you're terrified.

Yes, I love poetry, both to read and to write it. A first love.

I love to fish almost more than anything.

Writing 'Dog Stars' was coming home. My spirit just sang. It's what I wanted to do my whole life.

When I got out of college, I had to make a living, and I started writing for magazines, and it felt like the perfect job.