"I’m interested in what it means to be a good person. Good people do stupid things, and stupid people do good things."

Here's a well-done profile of Alan Heathcock, whose debut collection Volt I read and really enjoyed last year.

“Finding my voice as a writer coincided with having a family and feeling different things for the first time,” Heathcock says. “My preoccupations as a human being changed through loving my wife and kids and being worried about them.”

I can relate. I didn't start writing until after I had a family. Before that I just wasn't ready, and though I still go through phases of cynicism, I think my writing is much more positive and hopeful from starting later.