“I grew up in and around Manhattan—a wonderful island for gathering material and starting to write. In New York, there are so many places to study writing; I received an education at Columbia, Poets and Writers, and New Dramatists.

By working in book publishing—as a manuscript reader, editor, and “book doctor”—I learned more about the trade. The problem was, my sympathies weren’t with people at the office, but with the invisible senders of manuscripts. Writing the required rejection letters to would-be authors felt almost impossible. The prospect of receiving those letters was more comfortable, if only barely; I quit and took up writing.

For me, writing for a living has meant writing for money and for love. During the past twenty years, I’ve found the two curiously compatible and even intertwined. With luck, it’s possible to be a gum-snapping reporter at one turn and a literary novelist the next—as long as these distinct experiences are measured out in turns and not in minutes. Time is the great commodity for writers; every successful author is a time-wrangler of one kind or another.
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