After I self-published my first book, “Il Molo”, several friends asked me if I had always written? I often wanted to respond facetiously and say “No, only since the first grade.” However, I refrained myself because I knew that was not the answer they were looking for, nor the question they had asked. They were really asking if I considered myself an author.

The answer is not so easy. My “writing” background is eclectic. When I was a teenager I started a James-Bond-like novel in one of my school notebooks. Now I wish I could find the manuscript and work on it again. I am sure it was thrown out a long time ago. In a high school English course covering the short story as a literary genre, our daily homework assignment was to write a two or three page short story. I do remember concocting literary gems in the morning on the school bus. I have written innumerable proposals, two or three articles for a United Nations organization in Geneva, and numerous satirical articles for a clandestine in-house newsletter for which I was one of the editors.

Am I an author? That depends on one’s definition. Only time will tell. If no one buys my stories, then I guess the answer is clear. However, I have promised myself that I will keep writing. I don’t write every day, but I do think about writing every day. When I find the solution to a stumbling block in the narrative, then I start writing again. As I write other things come to mind, and I continue until the idea well runs dry.