The stories that engaged me as a kid were all science fiction. Later, it turned out that I didn't have the language to talk about what was bothering me in a way that was straightforward.

Shakespeare shows you what it is possible to do in English as a writer - but also shows you that you might as well give up. As it's all been done before and hundreds of years ago. So I have had that long-standing relationship of oppression and inspiration.

There are reasons to go on living despite what horrors may come in your life. And love informs those reasons.

My natural tendency is to write about zombie bunnies, but one of my first writing teachers got incorporated into my writing superego, and I keep hearing his admonition to make things feel more real the weirder they get.