The police and I have a deal. I don't talk to them and they don't listen to me.

I took up writing to escape the drudgery of that every day cubicle kind of war.

Literature is the adventure. It's the story, it's the fight, it's people falling in love, it's people with deep personality disorders who succeed anyway beyond themselves. That's what great literature is.

I like to read either in motion or in water... I am happiest reading in the bathtub.

I'm almost completely without family and it's a very odd feeling in life. I have no children.

Susan Straight finds LA's secret heart in Between Heaven and Here and with a sleight of hand only the masters have, she creates an alley, a neighborhood, a history that is as rich and tragic as any Shakespearean tale.

Purely the idea of writing a lot of books doesn't make you a great writer, but it might be that the process of doing a lot of writing will make you a much better writer.