William Faulkner is one of the most acclaimed authors of the twentieth century, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1955. He wrote primarily about the post-Civil War South and that war's effect on its people, places, and culture. I just completed his masterwork, Absalom, Absalom!—a fantastic narrative of ambition and diabolical characters woven through the tragic antebellum South, the rise and fall of the plantation, and the hi

As I write, I can literally see scenes unfolding before my eyes. Images bring the story to life. I see the setting before I describe it. I watch my characters move through it. Light falls across a room. Shadows lengthen. A glance changes the meaning of a conversation. Being a visual artist has taught me to write scenes before sentences. It is film that has made my novels cinematic. I am a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense. His thrillers can be watched over and o

If you know me well, you know I'm reflective. I'm not shy, nor especially soft-spoken, but I rarely express a thought before I've lived with it for a while. That's one reason I've kept journals for nearly thirty years. They've become my confidant, my communion, my refuge, my laboratory, and perhaps my truest voice. Over the years, those journals evolved into three distinct companions: my personal journal, my sketchbook, and my writer's notebook. First is my personal journal.

I think I read differently than most people. A compelling narrative can pull me in, but it's an author's craft that keeps me there. I love the detective work of uncovering the hidden devices employed by clever writers - their scene choices, plot structures, symbolism, callbacks, and especially the Easter eggs tucked away for attentive readers. Beneath every great story lies another story: how it was built. Reading as deconstruction is a little like standing before a Motherwel