What did it for me was a blurb on the back of a book I was reading. The blurber wrote - I just looked it up - that "Trials have provided some of the best examples of 'micro-history' or the 'new narrative'...." And that was it.

Every now and again your life's course can turn on one simple thing, some small decision the import of which isn't at all obvious at the time.

In researching literary agents I did what the books tell you to do: I looked at the acknowledgments page of a book that was similar to mine. Happily, that author thanked his agent. I looked up the agent on the web and found out that he not only represented authors writing books similar to mine, but I knew some of his clients! So, I sent in the manuscript, and they decided to represent it.

These days I'm probably happiest when I see my two daughters loving one another.

Research is all well and good, but I definitely enjoy writing the most. I will happily sit at my computer and work on a single paragraph for hours. And there's no better feeling than when your writing is going well.

I don't understand the mechanics behind things, so a site that I find impressive may not really be more technologically advanced than something which is ostensibly uninteresting.

What did it for me was a blurb on the back of a book I was reading. The blurber wrote - I just looked it up - that "Trials have provided some of the best examples of 'micro-history' or the 'new narrative'...." And that was it.