Some authors, when starting a novel, imagine a place first. Others, a character starts taking shape in their head. I start with a hook, a situation, a 'what if.

I was born in Darien, Connecticut, but in 1959, when I was four, my parents moved to the suburbs of Toronto. Then, in the late 1960s, they bought a cottage in a resort/trailer park in the Kawarthas region of Ontario, and we moved up there. I wrote a book about it in 2000 called 'Last Resort: Coming of Age in Cottage Country.

Some authors, when starting a novel, imagine a place first. Others, a character starts taking shape in their head. I start with a hook, a situation, a 'what if.

I was filling entire school notebooks with stories by Grade 3. Of course, they were double-spaced, and the handwriting was huge.

My life isn't much different than when I worked full time as a journalist.

Facebook, from what I can tell, is the virtual equivalent of dropping into the homes of several million people, all of whom say at the same time: 'Hey! Let's set up the slide projector!

These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about them.