I had wanted to write Ghost Country for a long time, but it wouldn't work.

I just wanted to play a cowboy for a long time.

For a long time, I wanted children. When I was about 30 or 32, I really thought about it.

Reviewers said Ghost Country was rich, astonishing and affecting in the way it blended comedy, magic, and a gritty urban realism in a breathtaking ride along Chicago's mean streets.

It takes a long time to write a novel when you have to keep interrupting your work to earn money.

I grew up in conservative rural Kansas in the 1950s when it was expected that girls would not have a life outside the home, so educating them was a waste of time.