I'm not gay, but I don't think you have to be gay to have a gay hero. Growing up, Alan Turing was certainly mine. I'm also not the greatest mathematician of my generation. We have lots of biographical differences, but nonetheless, I always identified with him so much.

Everyone has strange teenage years. It's not like I can claim some particularly unique set of high school horrors. I think I was just an awkward kid who never felt comfortable in his own skin. I think I was alone a lot by circumstance and then by choice.

My mother, she worked in the mayor's office in Chicago when I was growing up and has been in democratic politics for a long time.

When I first starting writing, and no one was paying me, in order to feel like I had a real job, I would get out of bed, put on a jacket and tie every morning, and sit down at my desk.