Beneath the stars the lake lay dark and sombre," Stead wrote, "but on its shores gleamed and glowed in golden radiance the ivory city, beautiful as a poet's dream, silent as a city of the dead.

I don't listen to music when I write, but I do turn on appropriate music when I read portions of my manuscripts back to myself - kind of like adding a soundtrack to help shape mood.

Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.

Reading Mission to Paris is like sipping a fine Chateau Margaux: Sublime!

. . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.

Leaves hung in the stillness like hands of the newly dead.

No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck.