I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.

If you run away from trouble, it always follows.' Rather my impression, too. Though that never stopped me trying.

Hope is a punishable offense. The verdict is always death; one more death of the heart.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote.

I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons.