I grew up on genre. If it had a dragon on the cover, I was interested. But horror, especially, really gripped me in its bony fist.

I grew up in western Oregon, just outside Eugene, on 27 wooded acres that served as my playground.

And I've learned to hit the brakes at these kinds of stop signs rather than t-boning a tanker truck filled with 200 proof mediocrity.

People like to pigeonhole. People like to label - not just books and movies, but everything in their life. If people want to call me 'literary horror,' I guess that's fine. What I'm trying to do is be both thrilling and thought-provoking.

I've never really been a genre fan. I never grew up reading comic books or was a horror buff.

Yes, I grew up with guns. For my 16th birthday, in fact, I received a .357 instead of a car. But there was nothing playful about them; they were tools. My parents went through a back-to-the-land phase. Most of our vegetables and fruits came from our own garden.