SOURCE: An interview with Michael Lowenthal, by www.Amazon.com, 1998.

[In the following interview Lowenthal discusses his literary influences and his purpose in writing.]

[Amazon.com]: Where are you from? How—if at all—has your sense of place colored your writing?

[Lowenthal]: I grew up mostly in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which I found to be comfortable but kind of colorless. A lot of people move in and out for Federal government work, and nobody is really "from" there. So I've always had "place envy" I'm jealous of people who have regional accents, family homesteads, all that stuff. I've always wished for some place that I could claim as my own (and then, perhaps, escape from), and I think this influenced me to write about the yearning for belonging.

When and why did you begin writing? When did you first consider yourself a writer?

As...