I think growing up in such a small town - before cell phones, before the Internet, before Facebook, before we had access to people's interiors - there was a great deal of space between people's lives. I spent a lot of time imagining into the lives of the people I grew up with.

There are times when I'll send a manuscript to an editor, and I'll think it is the most likely project I've ever sent them. And they might call me the next morning and say they couldn't tolerate it. That happens so frequently that I've given up any expectation of knowing what anybody's going to like.

I think of the part of me that writes as the most private self. It's the part that's engaged the least with the rest of the world's needs.

I was pretty strict in high school about who I would listen to. Musicians like Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell... who were, in my opinion, great writers. The music mattered, but it held hands with the lyrics, and the personality was, overall, unsullied.