I write in a journal first, briefly. Then read something I've read many times before, for about half an hour, then rework what I wrote the day before.

We'd do better to follow the admonition of Jesus about loving our neighbours. People in the U.S. are capable of forgiveness and willing to see one another's point of view, but when matters become politicised, we're less able to do that.

Writing is the hardest thing I know, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I wrote for 20 years and published nothing before my first book.

I'm attempting to broaden my novels' scope through landscape and weather, leaves falling off trees, overnight storms, timeless elements which, irrespective of human endeavour, have always been there and, as long as there is life and snow, will always be there.

If I wrote in Jacob Riis' time, I'd be writing about teeming slums in our cities and kids dying of tuberculosis or outhouses in Philadelphia or kids losing their toes because they were living in homes without heat. He took on a battle in 'The Battle with the Slums' - and we won.

Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature's way of letting in only as much as we can handle.

David Bowie's death came out of the blue, as did Prince's.

I am convinced that the world-wide protests during the Rivonia trial saved Mandela and his fellow-accused from a death sentence. But in South Africa, a life sentence means imprisonment until death - or until the defeat of the government which holds these men prisoner.