“After I had written more than a dozen adult genre novels, an editor I ...” — Rodman Philbrick Quote

After I had written more than a dozen adult genre novels, an editor I knew in New York asked me to write a mystery for young adults.

What surprised me most about the Donner tragedy was that, given the terrible circumstances, how anyone survived at all.

As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.

Unfortunately, the author of a book pretty much gives up control of the story when the producers take over a book to make it into a movie.

So long as you tell a story that falls within the fairly generous boundaries of the suspense novel, you're free to make the novel as good as you can. You're allowed to challenge the reader. You can experiment with voice and style.

With a hundred ways to do a dozen things, why not try it all?

You can read a dozen different textbooks or how-to manuals that will tell you the basic rules of what makes a story - a beginning, a middle, and an end.

A half dozen pictures would just about be enough for the life of an artist, for my life.

In my first book, Under Fire, I wrote that I revered Ronald Reagan. That was a dozen years ago. I still feel that way. I think he changed the world for the better for my children and my children's children.

I need to know the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right now.