A good TV writer needs all the same tricks a good novelist has.

What a thrill it is to have my writing recognized by an institution as admirable and vital as the National Endowment for the Arts.

The writer's job is to let the books speak for themselves eventually.

Once I have a book in my head, I write progressive drafts fast and obsessively and have trouble sleeping.

In real life, I go to the North Shore with my kids for two weeks each summer, and it's a magical place for us. I feel restored there and connected to the ancient, pre - human world in a way that no place else on Earth does for me.

In all honesty, my favorite place to write is an anonymous, cheap hotel in a city or town where nobody knows me, the wireless service is spotty, and the adjoining gas station has coffee, beer and junk food.

I write in an old-school paneled study in the middle of a large farmhouse in rural Iowa. I have pine floors, a big cherry desk, and a small window. The room is cluttered with papers and books and gifts from friends.

Music - which I could never listen to while writing before I had children - became essential to my process.

People are used to juggling multiple jobs and multiple responsibilities and multiple things on the home front, and sometimes you get a day off to read, and you just want a book that feels complete and that you can get through it on a rainy day on the couch.

I write while listening to music, mostly because the world beyond my headphones is too chaotic.