I am a longtime journalist and though my current book, "In The Matter of J. Van Pelt," is a novel, it is based on my experiences in Washington, D.C. and in the area around Appomattox, Virginia, where the Civil War ended. I lived a couple of doors down from William Faulkner when he was in residency in Charlottesville, Virginia, though I don't read his work nearly as much as I do Juvenal's and Cervantes'. I review books for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and am currenly writing two other novels and a book about American roots music called Alive Without Permiss more...
