I wrote my first book at the tender age of eleven. I forget its title. It had a print run of exactly one and sat on my shelf for many, many years. Set in the fictional town of Mannington, Idaho, it followed the adventures of several boys in a setting that was less familiar to me than the rings of Saturn. I guess I hadn’t heard the “write what you know” adage at that time. Or the one that goes, “kill your darlings”. Those Mannington boys are still around here somewhere. Probably a militia by now.

More than 20 years would pass before I next completed a book. This one, like nearly all my books, was a work of nonfiction. It was titled (by the publisher) About Face: How I Stumbled Onto Japan’s Social Revolution. It got several good reviews, including one in the Wall Street Journal and another in Newsweek. Better yet, it led to a nationwide book tour. Ah, those were the days!