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One important idea I hope is reflected in 'The Poe Shadow' is that fiction can add as much to history as nonfiction does.

When I was a teenager, I read a lot of Poe.

Poe was such a tragic and brilliant figure; he's somebody whom I've been somewhat obsessed with my whole life. I first read 'The Tell-Tale Heart' at age four.

I think Poe had a mission to tell us what it's all about. To answer some of the great questions of life.

Poe was plagued and haunted most of all by something pretty banal: poverty. Probably the most eccentric decision in life was to become a writer in an age when making a living at it was nearly impossible.

Poe was a student of many things, and among those things he read and referred to in his work was the Bible.

I guess one of the reasons I'm doing the Poe piece is that I think Poe demonstrates that no matter how difficult things are, if you continue to move forward in life, you can eventually become victorious, even if it's later in life.

My high school English teacher in junior year, Dr. Robert Parsons, assigned us some Poe stories, including 'The Black Cat' and 'The Purloined Letter.' Being an animal person, I had trouble with 'The Black Cat!' I got hooked instead by 'The Purloined Letter,' a Poe story with detective C. Auguste Dupin.

Reading Poe was like a near-death experience, the kind that makes you feel fragile and free in its wake. I felt almost as though I'd scared myself alive.

Detective fiction could not have existed without Edgar Allan Poe.