Before I was a voracious writer I was a voracious reader. Hemingway taught me how to use as few words as possible. Didion, Etchison, Chandler and West showed me sunny California's dark rootless horrors, while Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner plumbed the depths of the southern psyche. Borges, Garcia Marquez, Kosinski and Malamud taught me the power of magical realism, while J.G. Ballard's dazzling command of the English language and metafictional constructions left me breathless. Artaud was everything Burroughs ever wanted to be ... and he was really hot too. And of course every horror writer working today owes an enormous debt to Bradbury, Lovecraft, King, Stoker, Ramsey Campbell and Harlan Ellison.