“My new collection of short fiction, King the Wonder Dog: and Other Stories…is my love letter to the healing power of animals.”
“As a memoirist excavating my life, I needed a solid pier to anchor the boat. To write incisively about events that happened forty to fifty years ago, finding music to evoke those times was key.”
“People ask me if I ever get writers’ block, and I say ‘Never!’ If you feel like you can’t get anything creative done, throw on ‘Born to Go’ by Hawkwind.”
“When I lived in Sac City, Iowa, in my early twenties, the time in my life that Surety draws from, I was in the habit of starting a new playlist on the first of each month. This practice produced a series of playlists that replicated the subtle shift of seasons: what the light was doing.”
“Miranda Lambert and I might have made quite a team back in the day when I still drank tequila, smoked roll-your-own cigarettes, and danced with strangers. Maybe she gives that back to me, a time in my life when I stupidly loved the rawness of making mistakes and testing boundaries.”
“I wrote red, white, and blues because I believe poetry can still tell the truth when other forms have failed us.”
“I love loud music in desert bars, especially on a jukebox, and throughout the ’90s, which was when I worked on this book, such establishments were plentiful.”
“It is my great pleasure to share with you the music that soothed me and influenced me, that gave me the confidence to listen to my inner voice.”
“The book is divided into five sections of three essays each, and I’ve picked one song (and occasionally a bonus track) to accompany each essay.”
“Music is woven throughout the book, as it is woven through my life; I started off playing classical violin, then fell in love with fiddle music, indie rock, and songwriting, and have been combining those ever since.”