When I Grow Up I Want to Be Like You
In one way or another, I’d been planning to be a writer from the time I was a teenager. When I graduated college, though, I needed a job...
The Autobiography of a Life I Never Lived
Writing fiction is a form of wish fulfillment. Writing is such an immersive process that one of the byproducts is that the writer is...
Food and Home
My novel The Journey Home has multiple inspirations. The strongest of these was the romance between my mother and father that lasted more...
Degree of Difficulty
Writing fiction isn’t like competing in the Olympics in terribly many ways. This is, for the most part, a good thing, as my training...
On Editors and Editing
The very first book I ever edited – David Brin’s Startide Rising – won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. My batting average has plummeted...
Going Back to It
Early in my publishing career, I worked with a vaunted science fiction writer, one of the true masters of the field. His books...
In a Sentimental Mood
Many years ago, I read an article that John Irving wrote for the New York Times Book Review. In it, he defended the novelist’s use of...
Little Bit
One of the questions I get from readers regularly is about whether my novels are autobiographical. I'm guessing this happens to me so...
At the Keyboard and On the Couch
When I was going through the revision process on my first novel with my editor, we had a telling conversation. She was concerned that I...
