An Iconic Leaf is about the most personal book I've ever written. And for someone like me to say that is something. It began as a chap book, but stories kept creeping in. Two of them written with three close friends. There was no hint of a theme. Then, all of a sudden, there came one. And gradually my book had a theme, boy did it have a theme. Looking back on it, it became a study of words. Proper manners and intelligent phraseology, can be beautify and eloquent, but, by the time they finish chopping you off at the knees, it can take you about three days before you realize what they've done. I gave as good as I got occasionally, realized eventually I was in this to collect material. Words are us. We learn them when we're children. And they seem to be ours. They become inside us. And that' how people hurt us with words. Inside us. I've done it. I imagine you have too. It feels horrible. There are funny stories, nostalgia about the greatest TV shows ever, but all of it comes back to how words can make us feel so good and so belonging, or can hit us like a brick.