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We have a strong agricultural heritage in Kansas.

I have a long history with Kansas City.

I do a lot of writing about my family.

I go back to a very specific aspect of the Midwest - small towns surrounded by farmland. They make a good stage for what I like to write about, i.e., roads and houses, bridges and rivers and weather and woods, and people to whom strange or interesting things happen, causing problems they must overcome.

I love writing about Oklahoma. I love writing Oklahoma characters; I love playing Southwestern characters.

I've been back to the Kansas City area a lot in the past. My sisters went to college in the area. My brother went to college in the area. I've got friends there, so there's some ties to the area.

My mom grew up in Kansas, my dad in Indiana. They had boring childhoods.

I'm a regular dude from Kansas who grew up with pigs and cows.

I grew up in North Dakota around Dakota and Ojibwe people, and also small-town people in Wahpeton. Writers make few choices, really, about their material. We have to write about what comes naturally and what interests us - so I do.

I have a ranch in Montana, but it's not a real working ranch. I've always liked the outdoors. I come from Texas. My grandfather was a farmer; that's as close as I come.