Dean Bakopoulos

The writer's job is to let the books speak for themselves eventually.

In real life, I go to the North Shore with my kids for two weeks each summer, and it's a magical place for us. I feel restored there and connected to the ancient, pre - human world in a way that no place else on Earth does for me.

Once I have a book in my head, I write progressive drafts fast and obsessively and have trouble sleeping.

In all honesty, my favorite place to write is an anonymous, cheap hotel in a city or town where nobody knows me, the wireless service is spotty, and the adjoining gas station has coffee, beer and junk food.

A good TV writer needs all the same tricks a good novelist has.

What a thrill it is to have my writing recognized by an institution as admirable and vital as the National Endowment for the Arts.

Music - which I could never listen to while writing before I had children - became essential to my process.

People are used to juggling multiple jobs and multiple responsibilities and multiple things on the home front, and sometimes you get a day off to read, and you just want a book that feels complete and that you can get through it on a rainy day on the couch.