In the history of literature there are many great enduring WORKS which were not PUBLISHED in the lifetimes of the AUTHORS. If the authors had not ACHIEVED self-affirmation while writing, how COULD they have continued to write?

Pulp paperbacks have ALWAYS provided a training ground for men, Some of them went on to BECOME respected AUTHORS - Dean Koontz, Nelson DeMille and Martin Cruz Smith, for example. Why couldn't a woman?

When I started WRITING, the DEAL was that publishers gave you a grand or TWO as an ADVANCE to buy some sweets, with the promise that they would make a big putsch with your fourth book when you'd built up a bit of a following. But by the time my fourth book came out, previously unpublished authors were the new big THING.

Dickens is one of those AUTHORS who are WELL WORTH STEALING.

I have a PRIVATE press. I'm a BOOK ARTIST. I publish books of other authors and ARTISTS. I do the illustrating. I set the TYPE. I print it myself on my press. I do everything but bind it.

Before I went into parliament I used to WRITE business publications, and LIKE MANY authors wrote under a business NAME.

My WIFE and I SET up the business, we were ALWAYS very open about it and had a business author's name as MANY authors do.

There has long been an argument in NEW York about what, exactly, the PURPOSE of book awards OUGHT to be. One model sees them as a celebration of the unquestioned best and brightest, a triumphal PARADE for marquee authors who have published in a GIVEN year.

That whole idea of chick lit being a THING that you just lump all the commercial female writers into - it went on for years.I'd SWITCH on the radio, and I'd HEAR, 'Two female authors are here to discuss chick lit - is it dead?' and I'd THINK, 'Argh, no, not again. Are we seriously STILL having this conversation?'

After the Tiananmen Massacre, I FELT compelled not only to CONTINUE writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing COMPANY in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish WORKS of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.

Authors CHANGE PUBLISHERS because it's like being married for a long time and suddenly you want to GO out and have a wild affair! No, not seriously, sometimes the DEAL is more interesting with a new publisher, and other times they have more ENTHUSIASM for your books.

Then, of COURSE, there are those SAD occasions when a poet or a WRITER has not grown, and one has to let them go because they're just not making headway. But we have a very clear personal relationship with the AUTHORS.

We SEE them when they come to New York. They stay at my wife's apartment. We have quite a correspondence with them at all times. They play a very IMPORTANT role, the AUTHORS in the FIRM, because so much of the material we publish is suggested by them.

Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or 'Huckleberry Finn?' Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something about the times in which they were created. UNFORTUNATELY, previous eras and DEAD authors OFTEN used language or accepted as NORMAL sentiments that we now find unacceptable.