But the storyteller in me overpowers my pragmatism. There was no decision-making process, only the steady impulse to put words on paper until, when I came up for air, I realized what sat in my lap.

I hope to be “original” in my expression, just as I imagine all artists do. As I have already explained, however, it’s not something I myself can determine. However loudly I proclaim it from the rooftops, however often I am praised for it by the critics and the media, our voices are fated to vanish in the wind. All I can do is entrust the final dec

I’ve always been grateful (and somewhat amazed) that I read The Magic Mountain in my high school English class. That novel’s basic plot—a group of strangers are thrown together by circumstance and form a society in confinement—became the story line for just about everything I’ve ever written.