What one moment in your life felt straight out of a novel?

“Well, a thing happened to me when I was newly divorced, doing the single dad thing, and at the time I was depressed and strained, always distracted and overwhelmed. I drove my little guys to the elementary for the first day of school and parked along the curb. I flung my door open to get out and walk them in—and, in that moment, I saw a flash of something at the corner of my vision and yanked my leg and arm back into the car just as a school bus plowed into the side of the vehicle, tore the door off, and threw it 10 feet down the road. “And you know, in the years since, all these wonderful things have happened to me, and my three little guys have grown up into three creative, easygoing young men. The novelist part of my brain always thinks the bus got me and all this is just one last brilliant flash of fantasy, that I was struck dead and smashed into a daydream of a happy, busy, fulfilling life where it all worked out pretty good.”

What book feels like home to you?

“King Sorrow. In a practical sense, I lived with it, like a roommate, for seven years. Gwen Underfoot and Arthur Oakes, Colin Wren and Allison Shiner, Donna and Donovan McBride, Robin Fellows and Tana Nighswander, and, of course, the King himself—they all kept me company, day-in, day-out, hovering at the edges of my thoughts even when I wasn't writing. The narrative leaps through time like a stone skipping across flat water, touching down with my lead characters every five years, so in a real sense, I feel like I lived their lives with them.”

What's the first thing you do after finishing a draft?

“Throw on some Bob Seger and open a cold one? Maybe in the daydream version of my life. Usually the first thing I do after I finish a draft is get to work on the next thing. With a few big projects, I've celebrated the end by building a big LEGO. I put together the Death Star after finishing NOS4A2, London Bridge after wrapping up The Fireman, and I built the orca and the shark from Jaws after completing King Sorrow.”

Who are your favourite writers?

“I eat dinner with 'em every Thanksgiving.”

Where do you most like to write?

“In 2018, I remarried and was wed to an English woman and we now summer in the U.K., in Kent, just outside of London. We have twins, and it's important the grandparents get time with the little fellows. And I have a third-floor office that's up amid the crowns of these great King Oaks, trees that were saplings before Titanic sank. The windows are always open to catch the cross breeze, and, when the wind blows, I feel like I'm in my own little treehouse of the mind, tranquil and quiet.”