Note from the writer

Several years ago, I wrote to a very famous writer, one whose student I had been, for advice in getting my first book published. She generously replied by providing the names both of her agent and her fiction editor. Usually, someone who has failed in publishing books, as I have, does not secure that kind of confidence -- from anyone, and that means anyone, even one's own mother -- but I was lucky enough to have had a teacher who signed her name two decades ago to her statement of my young achievements, and who stands by it: it was then and still is her recommendation that I publish my work and that I work as a teacher.