Anyone who says that writing for children or teens is easier than writing for adults has never tried it, because they are so much more critical than adults. You cannot get anything past them.

It's a fallacy that people think that today's teenagers are shallow or somehow less intelligent than in the past.

The Lowcountry traditionally is a logical place where the big ships stopped and brought new things in from the ocean, and the islands have a mystical tradition. It is such a visual place, too, with these iconic villages with the Spanish moss and the village and historical homes and the coast.

I understand that fictional men aren't real. Not 'really real'. I know this the same way I wonder if my readers are disappointed when they meet me.

People assume that somehow fame and wealth will keep mortality at bay.

You know, I don't mind dying. The thing that pisses me off is that I won't get to be an old man. I was looking forward to that.

Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

You have a bout with death, things that touch your mortality, when that happens, all that bling-bling gets thrown away because all you've got is you and God.