“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.” -Herman Melville

I've been thinking a lot about why I write. For different books it's been different reasons:

My first book, which I will not tell you the title of, came out in 2003, which was a very long time ago. And when I wrote that one it was kind of just exploring the idea--I didn't have a belief that writing full-time would ever be a real thing that I did.

Several years later, I broke into the national market…