Greg van Eekhout

I grew up in Los Angeles, and I was always fascinated by the La Brea Tar Pits. Right in the middle of the city, in an area called the Miracle Mile, for crying out loud, we have these eldritch ponds of dark, bubbling goo. And down in the muck, there're all these amazing fossils: mammoth and saber tooth cat and dire wolf.

At a certain point in the writing of any book, you become absolutely certain that it's terrible and is only getting more terrible with every word you write. This is normal. You just have to keep going, push your way through, and have faith that, through practice and experience and determination, you will get to the end.

As a kid, I didn't need to be convinced the future promised peril and oppression, so when I started thinking up the middle-grade science fiction novel that became 'The Boy at the End of the World,' it seemed only natural to build the story around a dark vision of the future. In my book, civilization has nearly destroyed itself.

I haven't checked this out yet, but one of our guys told me we have a counselor within 45 minutes to an hour of most small businesses in this country. That's really powerful. I call it our bone structure.