Arthur Slade

The valley we lived in could easily be the setting for a fantasy novel or a prairie western novel. It could be anything.

Most authors would love to see their characters made for the screen, especially one that's quite colourful.

People tell me how great it must have been to ride horses and stuff. Well, do it for two days straight on dusty days when the cows and horses were really tired.

As enjoyable as it is when you're just writing and getting feedback from family members, it's 10 times more enjoyable, or 100 times more enjoyable, when you actually start getting paid for it, and people start reading your books, and once in a while you get a good review.

As a child, I spent a lot of time wandering around the prairies and in the hills, and there was a sense that it was such a wide-open space, and there was kind of a feeling of potential. I could imagine anything happening there.

The writer's goal is to try to make it frightening without describing it too much, and yet not making it so grey that you don't know what's going on... Your imagination can imagine all sorts of really horrible things, and if you're able to prolong that feeling, then you've succeeded.