* I started my first novel when I was 14. [This is true but boring.]

* I love dogs, I've always had dogs, but these days we have a bird. [This is true and ironic because it turns out birds are actually anti-dogs, which is to say they’re unpredictable, super smart, and they fly.]

* I grew up 7000 feet in the Sierras. [True glacial coniferous ultra beauty.]

* I'm fluent in Lua. [This is less true than it used to be because laziness.]

* I have a mailing list and I’ve never used it. [True. I go out of my way to collect visitor email addresses on my landing page, I lease an email backend, but I can’t bring myself to write and send chatty mass emails to people I’ve never met. Doesn’t it seem fraudulent? I barely talk to my friends. I do seem perfectly comfortable writing chatty web biographies, however. So I’m a mystery to myself.]

* I’ve won several awards as a playwright. [True, though you’ll have to take my word for it as the publications that issued my awards no longer exist. But why would I lie about playwrighting?]

* I've started three different software companies, and that's how I learned I'm bad at starting software companies. [This is true and not true because I’m actually good at starting them. It’s the other parts.]

* Our bird will outlive me. [Statistically speaking true.]

* I prefer tequila to mezcal because the taste is more predictable. [True. In this, as in many aspects of life, I prefer predictable outcomes because the more predictable my life is the easier it is to write, because writing itself is such a deeply unpredictable exercise. There's only so much of that I can take. A preference for predictable outcomes makes me a little boring on vacation, possibly, but if you find you're on vacation with me don't worry, just read one of my books. They're intentionally written not to bore anyone. That's my most important rule as a writer. It's more important than spelling for sure; "Don't be boring."]

* I have a humanities degree. [True almost by accident.]

* The one time I ever threw up bowling, I was drinking tequila. [True because to me bowling is a drinking game like quarters. And I know this might mean I need a refresher on the rules of bowling, but I have no idea where they keep those.]

* I have a magic-adjacent belief that problems will fix themselves if I ignore them. [True. I try not to fix what isn’t broken, and to err on the side of optimism and waiting things out because I’m naturally optimistic and lazy.]

* When my wife met me I was living in my Westfalia. [True and very romantic.]

* Now I live in a house in LA instead of a Westfalia, with my wife and our son and a bird. [Almost unbelievably this is true. It’s a wonderful place to live and they’re beautiful, inspiring people and a bird to live with. I'm very lucky.]

* In fiction I like characters with permanent flaws and stakes that are built, not bought. [Totally true. And I know building your own stakes moves your stories farther toward the fringe, where they might be lovely but are less likely to be seen, and sometimes, yes, I do wish the material was more mainstream. But not very often.]

* I follow research in senolytics. [Less true than it used to be, but I still check in because the future keeps being such an engaging mystery.]

* I'm attracted to fiction readers. They're just sexier than regular people. [So, so true. You've seen yourself in the mirror. You know what I’m talking about. You and that book on your nightstand, you're pretty hot.]

contact author