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I love Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor. I read a lot of American writers.

I learned to be a regional writer by reading people like Flannery O'Connor. She was a huge influence.

No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.

Flannery O'Connor is my creative hero. I think she's the greatest American writer. Her book, 'Mystery and Manners,' is my creative bible.

All this is rather pretentious and fey to even talk about, but Flannery O'Connor sat down to write stories. The rest of us, some of us, don't have that kind of wit and genius. We don't do that. We sit down and have some accidents.

I really hesitate to say that any of my shows influenced other writers.

I always had good recognition from the Southern writers, but the publishers never took any notice of that.

The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were on TV a lot, and they were allowed to misbehave a lot.

I've continued to write fiction since being in television. TV is a different kind of writing, but it's all writing. It was David Milch of 'Deadwood' who helped me to see it that way. We later collaborated on the short-lived 'John from Cincinnati,' but I'm very proud of the work we did together.

Writers are just like other people, except slightly more obsessed.