My years spent as a linguist taught me to listen to English very carefully. That, and Pablo Neruda, who had the capacity to mix harsh realities with physical beauty. My years as a journalist taught me to listen, and the years working as a book editor taught me to see. Writers like Patrick White, Somerset Maugham, Albert Camus, Brautigan (hundreds, really) guided me towards a kind of fiction that takes a fearless look at life and how to shape its harsh realities into noble existence. (They accomplished it, I'm still working on that. 

All my awards are from so long ago, the judges are all dead.

My novel, Birthmark (co-written with Bill Rowe) and the collection of poems, The Valley of My Western Heart, were tremendous learning opportunities. I built a small writer's cottage (you can see it on my website), which has given me the space to begin finishing two novels that had to wait until I was done with the publishing group (Vivisphere).