Thanks to a Librarian

When I was a child living in "Wilmillar" I spend many nights in the town library.  The librarian, who at this point was a young women, took a liking to me and encouraged my writing. This was before I had a typewriter and she use to allow me to type my stories on the library typewriter.

She also let me take out books from the adult library (which in those days meant grownup books, not a code word for pornography). That is where I read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Rosand's Cyrano de Bergerac and the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

When I wrote the story, "Terror and the Librarian", I set the tale in the "Wilmillar" Library as I remembered it. After 9/11, I realized my story was the essence of terror. Terrorists want to instill doubt and fear into people so they lose faith and love for the very basic things within their lives. 

This story brought me to the attention of the literary agent, Scott Meredith (no relation as far as I know). My name was passed to him by the editors of "Redbook Magazine". I turned down Scott Meredith's solicitation to become my agent. It was probably a mistake given his status and power in those days.