What is a writer of fiction but a liar with a licence?

As authors, we all expect criticism from time to time, and we all have our ways of coping with unfriendly reviews.

Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.

A thing named is a thing tamed.

I'm phobic about the idea of being constrained.

The right circumstances sometimes happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without warning. Layman's alchemy. . . . The magic of everyday things.

Places have their own characters. . . . But the people begin to look the same.