Art Is A Game Only If You

Work Is Its Own Cure. You Have To Like It Better Than Being Loved.

Every Baby Born Unloved, Unwanted, Is A Bill That Will Come Due In Twenty Years With Interest, An Anger That Must Find A Target, A Pain That Will Beget Pain. A Decade Downstream A Child Screams, A Woman Falls, A Synagogue Is Torched, A Firing Squad Is Summoned, A Button Is Pushed And The World Burns.

Listening Is Terribly Important If You Want To Understand Anything About People. You Listen To What They Say And How They Say It, What They Share And What They Are Reticent About, What They Tell Truthfully And What They Lie About, What They Hope For And What They Fear, What They Are Proud Of, What They Are Ashamed Of. If You Don't Pay Attention To Other People, How Can You Understand Their Choices Through Time And How Their Stories Come Out?

One Of The Best Gifts You Can Give A Poet Is To Present Them With Field Guides - To Rocks, To Stars, To Birds, To Wildflowers, To Trees And Bushes, To Butterflies, To Reptiles And Amphibians. Because When You Look At Anything Long Enough To Be Able To Identify It, You See Far More Clearly And You Make A Tiny Beginning At Understanding The Life, The Place, The History Of That Bird Or Rock Or Mammal.

In Fiction, I Exercise My Nosiness. I Am As Curious As My Cats, And Indeed That Has Led To Trouble Often Enough And Used Up Several Of My Nine Lives. I Am An Avid Listener. I Am Fascinated By Other People's Lives, The Choices They Make And How That Works Out Through Time, What They Have Done And Left Undone, What They Tell Me And What They Keep Secret And Silent, What They Lie About And What They Confess, What They Are Proud Of And What Shames Them, What They Hope For And What They Fear. The Source Of My Fiction Is The Desire To Understand People And Their Choices Through Time.