Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those same values, some of the same techniques.

Quite often I can be in a bookshop, standing beneath a great big picture of myself and paying for a book with a credit card clearly marked John Grisham, yet no one recognises me. I often say I'm a famous author in a country where no one reads.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you.

I've been accustomed to being famous and having a certain level of attention for 14 years, but in the last few months, it's changed. It's like on the arcade game, I've gone up to the next level.

I literally was famous before I knew my own name.