That something extra I believe is a certain humanity that comes from upbeat and positive human interest letters and success stories. Advertisers like to be associated with those qualities.

There's a lot of peer pressure to not do positive stories out of Iraq... I think there's a sense that the administration got a pass during the hot days of war and now that the war is over it's time to even out the deck somewhat.

It was a very emotional dinner... Everyone shared personal stories about her and gave her words of encouragement and inspiration. Everyone tried to remain positive.

I've had a lot of very positive feedback about those stories and seem to have struck upon something that most people feel. I can also tap dance and don't know many other authors who can.

I always had this non-stop drive. I had to keep sending stories out and every once in awhile I'd get something accepted or get the little trickle of positive feedback.

Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback.

I always wanted to work at 'Take A Break' magazine you know just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote 'Garnethill' because I didn't get that job!

I want to write a book of poetry as well as children's stories.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

I was a visual artist primarily and a writer even from a very young age. I wrote a lot of stories and poetry and... I had a desire to create always. And I always had a desire to show my work.