I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage

How could she have believed such an artificial life as the theatre was suitable?

I'm 78, I'm on my pension in Ireland, and all that good stuff

Mostly I'm telling people that they don't have to be victims

I have my good days and my bad days, but I don't have as much energy as I used to back when I was young and foolish and didn't count the cost - and it takes a lot - to write

Your music can be played easily and well by any half-stringed harper or fumble-fingered idiot. Not that I'm maligning your songs. It's just that they're an entirely different kettle of fish-to use a seamanly metaphor-to Domick's. Don't you judge your songs against his standard! More people have already listened to your melodies and liked them than will ever hear Domick's, much less like them.

But Ship Who Sang remains my favorite story. I really rocked folks with that and still cannot read it aloud myself without weeping at the end