I know what I write about seems exotic to a lot of people, but not for me. I pulled up to an old trading post and saw a few elderly Navajos sitting on a bench. I felt right at home.

The first Chapter Law is, "Don't spend much time on it. You're going to have to rewrite it."

I always try to make the setting fit the story I have in mind.

How can you stop writing?

I am 82 years old. I imagine that I will keep on writing as long as anyone wants to keep reading.

Everything is connected. The wing of the corn beetle affects the direction of the wind, the way the sand drifts, the way the light reflects into the eye of man beholding his reality. All is part of totality, and in this totality man finds his hozro, his way of walking in harmony, with beauty all around him.

The essays in The Great Taos Bank Robbery were my project to win a Master of Arts degree in English when I quit being a newspaper editor and went back to college.