As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

Reading honest literature makes you love the world. Knowledge and understanding are love. Reading educates our feelings and enhances our sympathy. When you read for understanding, you are fundamentally changed. You are a different person at the end of the story or the novel than you were when it began.

As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

I lost my job and started painting houses with a friend. The marriage had ended about the same time the career did.

Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential.

The facts, however, are unimportant in fiction. It's not the events of my life that I mine, but the emotional experiences I've had.

Place is character. And all writing is regional.