FAQ

How old are you?

I was born on March 23, 1953 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Where did you go to school, and were you a good student?

I was a terrible student. They let me out of high school. They threw me out of college. I graduated from St. Paul’s Harding High School in 1971. I went to Southwest Minnesota State College in Marshall, Minnesota to play football, but I flunked out after two years. However, in my second year of college I was chasing after a girl and she took and Introduction to Theatre course—so I took it because she took it. The girl got away but I got the acting bug and took off for Hollywood the next year. I graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, California in 1976.

Why did you become a writer?

I failed at acting.

Where did you study writing?

I never studied writing—never took a writing class. Everything I know about writing I learned in theater, especially building a character. Create a good character and the readers will follow him anywhere. I bummed around Hollywood for five years after acting school. After failing at that I thought maybe I could be a writer. So I moved home to St. Paul and began writing Saint Mudd. That was in 1982.

What authors influenced you the most?

It was a bizarre combination of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Joseph Wambaugh. I was reading a lot of their books in the 70s, before I began writing.

Where do your ideas come from?

A K-Mart in Fridley—I don’t know, they just come to me.

What kind of books do you like to read?

Most people are surprised by how little fiction I read. I stopped reading it almost as soon as I started writing it. Most of my reading today is non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on history.

Name some of your favorite books.

Oh, boy, there are so many. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, Burr by Gore Vidal, The Great Gatsby and Tales of the Jazz Age, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh. These are books I keep coming back to. And movies have had a lot of influence on my work. I love watching the old black and whites on TCM late at night.

What is your favorite book of yours?

It would have to be Saint Mudd because it was my first book and because of all that I went through to get it published—though, personally, I think The Weatherman is a better book. The Wheat Field is another favorite just because it was so much fun to write.

When do you write?

I’m a night writer. I usually begin writing around 11 P.M. and work until one or two in the morning. That’s just when my brain works. Always has. If school had started at noon I’d have been the valedictorian, unfortunately it started at 8 A.M. and my brain didn’t wake up until football practice. I used to be able to write until dawn, but I can’t do that anymore. It’s an age thing. I save my days for research, reading, and scribbling notes.

What do you write on?

A desktop PC, but a lot of my scenes I still write out in longhand on a legal pad. Moon Over Lake Elmo and The Wheat Field were almost completely written in longhand before I put them on my computer.

Is it true you write the ending of your books first?

Yes, I usually write the ending first—that way I always know where I’m going. Everything has to lead toward that end. There is nothing worse than reading a good book with a lousy ending, and it’s usually because the author didn’t know how to end it. I don’t want to get on a plane with a pilot who doesn’t know how to land, and I don’t want to read a book by an author who doesn’t know how to end it.

I read in a review that you are something of a recluse. True?

That would come as a surprise to my family and friends. Seems these days anybody who can’t be found on the Internet is considered a recluse. I confess I was late to the Internet—though I still don’t think it has anything to do with writing a book. I’m low-tech. I don’t own a cell phone, or a camera, or an ipod, or a blackberry, but that doesn’t make me a recluse—it just makes me hard to get a hold of.

So you really don’t like e-mail?

I’m laughing now—so I won’t answer that.