I've lived in Kansas for more than thirty years, and for half of those, I was part of a ranching family, so I'm writing about things I know and love.

I've known a lot of cowboys and a few cowgirls. They're, by and large, some of the smartest, funniest, most courteous, generous, and hardest-working people you'd ever want to know.

I often feel like not writing! Sometimes I overcome it by just sitting there until writing happens. Sometimes I don't write, because books often need periods of percolation.

I go for drives in the Flint Hills, which is the setting for 'The Virgin of Small Plains'.

I love the unexplainable. It would be so boring to me if everything could be explained.

I live in a little suburb close to Kansas City called Prairie Village, where there's a feeling of everybody knowing everybody else. I think the same thing is true of New York City, by the way.