Revising stuff lately, I was shocked to see how often my characters scratched their ankles, felt their feet, and touched their own ears.

I'm a geeky toy collector, and to have toys of your own characters is unbelievably cool.

When I tell people there are three stories in 'Thunderstruck' that were from the same wrecked novel, they want to guess what they are. Nobody has. There are no characters or timelines in common. They're structured very differently. A good novel wouldn't have pulled apart so easily.

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.

When you've lost a baby, everyone around you expects you to be fine once the new baby is born, as though that somehow takes away the pain of losing the first child. I needed to express how wrong that was.

Humor reminds you, when you're flattened by sorrow, that you're still human.