Chainsaw the end off a coffin? Did I really do that?

Yep. A way-too-revealing interview with yours darkly by the I wonderful folks at Writers News Weekly.

What do these things NOT have in common?
You have to be dead to use one of them.

Q: What are some jobs you had before you started writing?

A: One of my first jobs was as a gravedigger. My parents owned a cemetery and we lived there in a big stone house. Given my morbid nature, I loved living and working there. I had a few creepy experiences that will be used in a prequel to The Book of Paul called The Bone King, which explores the character Johnny The Saint who is touched on only briefly in Paul.

Q: What were those experiences like?

A: The funniest episode involved sawing off the end of a casket with a chainsaw because it was too big to fit into the cement vault. The weirdest experience was having the muddy side of a grave collapse on me when I was inside it. It was pouring rain and when the side gave way it exposed a very old, crushed, wooden slat casket, with black funk oozing out the side. I was tripping on acid at the time and found it hysterically funny. The saddest, most disturbing experience was burying a baby. There were no family members present, no one at all. The baby was in a container the size of a shoe box and I carried it out into the cemetery under my arm, dug the hole, said a prayer and filled it in. I was only a teenager then, and it was just so incredibly sad.

Intrigued? Read the rest of the interview here.