Sometimes, if you get very, very lucky . . .

Sometimes, if you get very, very lucky, you get to do exactly what you wanted to do when you were just a kid. For me, that was writing.

Writing stories, long and short. In the back seat of the old station wagon with the windows rolled up against the noise of siblings and neighborhood kids. Read nonstop. The professional writer's life began after a long mostly happy sojourn in the jetlag jungles of international advertising. I grew up in Florida, went to Virginia to a small college and majored in English. The school's unofficial motto was 'We can't all be scholars, but we can all be gentlemen.'

After graduation, I worked for exactly 365 days in a bank (don't ask)and really, really disliked it. Later, I moved to Europe to be a writer, but mostly just to emulate Scott Fitzgerald who was and, I guess, is, my idol. I bounced around Italy, France, and in Rome, got cast as a cowboy in a spaghetti western that never got made, ran out of money and ideas at roughly the same time, got a job at a big New York ad agency. My career took me places: I lived in New York, Chicago, London, etc .In England, I wrote a young adult adventure novel.

It's still my favorite book of mine. TSAR my sixth novel, is currently #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List. I started writing full time in 2000. And I've returned to Florida where, like it did on the day I was born, the sun still shines down all the livelong day.