I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.
And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's armies in Albania, on the Greek frontier, one wasn't sure what came next. So, don't trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.
I'm not really a mass market writer.
Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.
If you're a writer, you're always working.
I invented the historical spy novel.