What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other.

The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters.

I enjoy the Web site a lot and I like being able to talk to my readers. I've always had a very close relationship with them.

I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.

In my books and in romance as a genre there is a positive uplifting feeling that leaves the reader with a sense of encouragement and hope for a brighter future - or a brighter present.

Aside from sales the letters from readers have been primarily positive.

As writers and readers as sinners and citizens our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

I don't want to force my politics on my readers.

Short fiction is the medium I love the most because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that though lacking a novel's length satisfies the reader.

Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.