Daniel Woodrell has dealt with Hollywood before -- his novel Ride with the Devil was made into a 1999 film by Ang Lee -- but his experience with Winter’s Bone is unique. After being adapted into a small art house feature by indie filmmaker Debra Granik, the little feature became a breakout hit at Sundance. Now it’s the art house breakout film of 2010, with a number of Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. We talked to Woodrell, whose The Bayou Trilogy is coming out in April, about suddenly being in the eye of the Oscar race, living where he writes, and the overlap between rural Missouri and the fictional St. Bruno.

When did it become apparent that Winter’s Bone was going to be made into a film?

I’m pretty sure they optioned it before it was published, and it looked like the film was going to happen a few times, but it kept falling through. I don’t think I was convinced it was happening until they started filming. I’d been through this before, with Ride with the Devil, and that went into turn around the day before they were supposed to start shooting, so…

When did you realize that Winter’s Bone was going to be, well, a breakout hit?

When I went to an 8:30 AM screening at Sundance and saw how the audience went nuts. Then I was told that another screening, the previous morning, had drawn the same reaction. That’s when I started thinking something [big might happen with the film.] Going into Sundance the hope was really just that the film would find distribution, but coming out of the festival, well the feeling was different.

Has the success of the film changed your career?

I can’t tell yet. I do know suddenly my backlist is back in play. And I know the paperback sales for Winter’s Bone have gone up significantly. And [when I’m at readings] I realize that, suddenly, a lot more people have heard about me and the film.

And you actually still live in Missouri, where you grew up and where the film is set. Incidentally you live not too far from where they shot the film. Has it changed anything for you locally?

More or less anywhere my wife and I go somebody will tell us how wonderful it is that we live here…and still live here.

Although a number of your books are set in the Ozarks, where Winter’s Bone takes place, you’ve also written quite a few books set in the parish of St. Bruno, where the novels in the The Bayou Trilogy take place. You grew up in the Ozarks, so obviously that’s the connection to that place. What’s your tie to Louisiana?

St. Bruno is kind of my mythical town. I’ve always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns. I’ve also had a chance with St. Bruno to make my own town. I didn’t really want to write about a real place so, with these books, I get to invent a town. And there's no point in inventing your own town if it's going to be a place where not much happens.

The Bayou Trilogy is set in the fictional St. Bruno parish and follows detective Rene Shade as he makes his way through this underworld full of pimps, and crooks, and other unsavory types. Although the main character in Winter’s Bone, Ree Dolly, is a teenage girl, she’s also making her way through her own version of a seedy underworld—albeit a more rural one. Are Ree and Rene cut from the same cloth,?

Rene’s mother could walk right onto the set of Winter’s Bone. There’s also a character in one of the books of the trilogy who, like Ree, is also having to grow up in a hurry. In her case her father is an alcoholic and in bad health. Overall I think there are characters and qualities I’ve been interested in all along.

You live where you write—is that a help or a hindrance?

There is the risk that day-to-day life will get between you and the magic of the place. … I never though I’d want to write about here but once I got started I couldn’t see getting away from it. My family was among the first wave of settlers [to the Ozarks]—they came here before the Civil War, which is a long time out here. I guess I’ve just found my world to write about.

Has anything funny happened, with neighbors or whatnot, as a result of the fact that you write about the place you live?

There is one odd thing that’s happened. I’ve bumped into at least three people in town who all insist Winter’s Bone is about them.

Are you going to the Oscars?

No. And I’m almost thankful about that, in a way. That scene is all about having to find the right cummerbund, and they’ll know if you don’t have the right one. You know, it’s not the Willis Springs prom.