He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anyone in Humanities, probably.

People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny.

A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delight in doing the wrong thing.

When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises.

I get and read an enormous number of first novels.

People who imagine themselves to be self-made seldom enjoy examining the process of manufacture in detail.

Who but an English professor would threaten to kill a duck a day and hold up a goose as an example?