His Eyes Beheld Beauty Not

I Don't Have Many Friends. It's Not Because I'm A Misanthrope. It's Because I'm Reserved. I'm Self-contained. I Get All My Adventures In My Head When I'm Writing My Books.

My First Novel Was Turned Down By Half A Dozen Publishers. And Even After Having Published Five Or Six Books, I Wasn't Making Enough Money To Live On, And Was Beginning To Think I'd Have To Give Up The Dream Of Being A Full-time Writer.

I Love Short Stories - Reading And Writing Them. The Best Short Stories Distill All The Potency Of A Novel Into A Small But Heady Draught. They Are Perfect Reading Material For The Bus Or Train Or For A Lunchtime Break. Everything Extraneous Has Been Strained Off By The Author. The Best Short Stories Pack The Heft Of Any Novel, Yet Resonate Like Poetry.

I've Always Written. At The Age Of Six Or Seven, I Would Get Sheets Of A4 Paper And Fold Them In Half, Cut The Edges To Make A Little Eight-page Booklet, Break It Up Into Squares And Put In Little Stick Men With Little Speech Bubbles, And I'd Have A Spy Story, A Space Story And A Football Story.

I Am, Of Course, A Frustrated Rock Star - I'd Much Rather Be A Rock Star Than A Writer. Or Own A Record Shop. Still, It's Not A Bad Life, Is It? You Just Sit At A Computer And Make Stuff Up.