The past is still visible. The buildings haven't changed, the layout of the streets hasn't changed. So memory is very available to me as I walk around.

What's lucky about my career in general is that I stumbled into what every writer most wants. Not repeating myself and doing strange things has become my trademark.

I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.

We got HBO when I was 7. My parents would be in bed, 'Children of the Corn' would be on at midnight, and I'd watch it on mute.

I was making a lot of 8mm home movies, since I was twelve, making little dramas and comedies with the neighborhood kids.

My mother's family was among the 120,000 people of Japanese descent on the West Coast who were dispatched to internment camps during World War II.

Skiing not only for yourself and your family, but for your country, was surreal. The amount of support I got from back home in Indiana was insane.