Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.' That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.

Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.

Get up from your desk and wander outside occasionally. To be a good writer one needs to be a good observer, and there isn't a lot to be observed at desk level.

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are: Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.

Touch magic. Pass it on.

Wood may remain twenty years in the water, but it is still not a fish.