I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.

Be kind to the living.

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

God gived you the seed. But the watering and caring of that seed is up to you.

The thing that I do is that when I fail, I just keep quiet about it. I just let it go. It's done. I just go to the next thing. I don't complain, I don't go to - I pick my battles very, very judiciously, and I just assume that there's good in the heart of everybody.

The man was the finest preacher. He could make a frog stand up straight and get happy with Jesus.

The act of choosing what to place in your piece when you're a historian or a non-fiction writer already renders it into fiction for someone else. In some ways fiction comes a lot closer to reality. When you start talking about something as brutal as slavery and life in the American West, it's really important to take a non- judgmental stance. We romanticize a great deal about life in the American West, but I thank God I wasn't living during that time. No matter what color you were, it was rough, crude, tough living.