I Had Wanted To Write Ghost Country

Organizer Is Kind Of A Grand Term For What I Was Doing. I Answered An Ad That The Presbyterian Church Of Chicago Put Up On College Campuses. I Was At The University Of Kansas, And It's Somewhat Relevant To My Life And Work That I'm A Jew. But They Weren't Doing A Religious Litmus Test. They Wanted Energetic, Civil-rights-committed College Students To Come Help Them Run Some Summer Programs.

I Began Wanting To Create A Detective Who Really Turned The Tables On That Image Of Women, To Know That You Could Have A Sex Life And Not Be A Bad Person. You Could Have A Sex Life And Still Solve Your Own Problems. It Was Eight Years From When I Started Having The Fantasy That I Was Going To Create Such A Detective To When I Actually Sat Down And Came Up With V. I. Warshawski. It Was A Long, Slow Journey To Come To A Writing Voice And Do That Character.

While We Were Walking Around, We Came To The Catholic Church, And We Saw That Some People Had Set Fire To Carpets And Banked Them Around The Rectory, Which Was Made Out Of Wood. They Knew Every Fire Truck On The South Side Was Going To Be In The Park, That The Rectory Would Just Burn To The Ground. Our One Little Act Was Putting Out That Fire.

I'm Very Honoured That There Is A Loyal Following And I Hope It Continues

I Had A Fantasy As A Child That I Might Be A Writer Someday. I Always Thought That Meant You Went To New York Or Paris. But After That Intense Summer, I Never Thought That I Wanted To Live Any Place But Chicago. It Also Made Me See What The Stakes Were In The Civil Rights Movement. And It Made Me See What Real Hatred Was Like And The Forms That It Took. But It Also Made Me Understand How Powerless Ordinary People Feel In Their Lives.