Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he'd always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion.

I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.

It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.

I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.

The earliest influence on me was the movies of the thirties when I was growing up. Those were stories. If you look at them now, you see the development of character and the twists of plot; but essentially they told stories. My mother didn't go to the movies because of a religious promise she made early in her life, and I used to go to movies and come home and tell her the plots of those old Warner Brothers/James Cagney movies, the old romantic love stories. Through these movies that had real characters, I absorbed drama, sense of pacing, and plot.

Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.