Actually, I'm incapable of holding a day job, so I had no choice - and the Courtney book and media fanfare were fun.
And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it.
By the time Liquor takes place... well, since their relationship at least somewhat mirrors my own, I don't want to imply that they take each other for granted or aren't passionate about each other, but by the time you've been together that long, you'd better have more than sex or you're in trouble.
Celebrities, even insignificant ones like me, are created to be abused by the Great Unwashed.
I certainly don't think I would have been asked to pose for Rage if I wasn't a known writer.
I certainly haven't always been wise in interviews, but I have always tried to be honest about what I am and why I do this work.
I certainly wanted to write a book that was honest about New Orleans without explaining it to death, so much so that the first draft contained references absolutely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't lived here for several years.
I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.
I like visiting people's homes on Saint Joseph's Day, when people set up altars, serve food as a tribute to the saint, and invite the public - I enjoy that much more than Mardi Gras.
I think film had a terrible effect on horror fiction particularly in the 80s, with certain writers turning out stuff as slick and cliched as Hollywood movies.
I think the book is more accessible to non-New Orleanian readers now, but I still get a special thrill from locals who tell me they recognize the city I've written about as their own.
I was pretty sure I was going to make it. I don't mean to imply that I 100%-knew I was going to be successful. I knew I was pretty good and dedicated to getting better.
I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.
I've certainly learned a great deal from my husband, though, and could never have written a book like Liquor without him and the people he introduces me to and the stories he brings home.
I've tried to avoid labels, but they always find you.
In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other.
In high school I was the dog, always, and I never have felt comfortable or right in my body, and part of my whole exhibitionist thing has probably been a way of testing to see whether or not I really was this repulsive creature that I felt like for so long.
In the Netherlands I read the first chapter of Exquisite Corpse to an audience that laughed in all the places I thought were funny - an experience I've never had in America!
Liquor's menu certainly has some local touches, but as Rickey, the chef, says, the food is eclectic French-influenced - not Creole.
Mostly I enjoy the restaurants (my husband is a chef), though I wish we had a wider diversity of ethnic food.
Much of my travel has been related to my work, so I've been able to see how my work is received in other places.
My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was allowed to read whatever I wanted.
My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.
My mother is an office manager, my father a professor of economics and financial planner.
New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.
No, I don't feel at all settled into the horror niche; I feel a bit tired of it and seem to be moving in other directions.
So many of the novels and movies set here are inaccurate and cliched to the point of being offensive, and we appreciate anything that gets it right.
Some of the food in Liquor is food I've really eaten filtered through a veil of fiction.
The Big D, which takes place a couple of years after Liquor, is already written and will be published in March 2005.
There are people who must spend huge amounts of time composing these online diatribes against me, all about how disgusting and terrible I am and how no one should ever read my books, and it's not enough for them to hate me, they can't stand the fact that ANYONE likes me!
This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes, probably because they aren't old enough to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.
Yeah, I think A Confederacy of Dunces is probably the perfect New Orleans book.
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