Curiosities

* Our inner lives (dreams, memories, thoughts and the symbols they use to express themselves)

* Time of day (stories that could only take place at night)

* Early expeditions and traditional caravan routes in the Sahara 

* The Moderns for their unique sense of reality and unreality after the first Great War

* The features of the Milky Way, its points of darkness and brightness

* The chance encounter of a sewing-machine and an umbrella

* Grand Central

* Snow

* Toys

* Taxi drivers

* Folksongs

* Country doctors

* Europe's grand hotels 

* The leper colony established on the island of Molokai

* The migration of salmon

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Some of these subjects and narrative forms show up in my fiction or give shape to it. Others are much newer to me and may or may not find their way in.

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