I was raised in a little church, the Grundy Methodist Church, that was very straight-laced, but I had a friend whose mother spoke in tongues. I was just wild for this family. My own parents were older, and they were so over-protective. I just loved the 'letting go' that would happen when I went to church with my friend.

I had always dreamed of living in Chapel Hill. When I was a college student at Hollins University in Virginia, I came down to Chapel Hill for summer school and just loved it.

I write about people in small towns; I don't write about people living in big cities. My kind of storytelling depends upon people that have time to talk to each other.

I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.

It's usually drawing on personal experience. I don't think I could dig deep enough trying to get into somebody else's life. Like 'Far From Me' - I wrote it about this waitress that I was dating when I was fifteen or so, and she broke up with me.

But through experience I learned to control my body and locate the ball.

It is true that I have been studying both humility and pride for many years for the purpose of weakening pride in my own life and cultivating humility by the grace of God.

We are all born alone and die alone. The loneliness is definitely part of the journey of life.