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I was always very aware of the nature of the place where I was growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi, how that place was shaping my experience of the world. I had to go to the Northeast for graduate school because I felt like I had to get far away from my South, be outside it, to understand it.

I grew up in Mississippi. I was there for 13 years, and then when I turned 13, I moved out to L.A.

I feel like I can be myself in L.A. I feel like Mississippi is a little close-minded; not all of Mississippi is, but just the part that I came from. They really don't get outsiders.

Oh, definitely and I talk about all the things that I really needed to make me happy at that point in time were outside of Mississippi, and now all the things that I need to make me happy are back there.

I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns.

I'm from the Mississippi delta originally.

I went to college in Mississippi; I'm from Louisiana.

I left the Midwest when I was twelve years old, and I haven't lived in a small town since.

I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?

Yeah, I spent my teen years in West Virginia, and when I was a kid, in Louisiana. I definitely have that exposure to two different sorts of rural: the South and Appalachia.