Kent Haruf — American Novelist born on February 24, 1943,

Alan Kent Haruf was an American novelist... (wikipedia)

We'd do better to follow the admonition of Jesus about loving our neighbours. People in the U.S. are capable of forgiveness and willing to see one another's point of view, but when matters become politicised, we're less able to do that.
I'm attempting to broaden my novels' scope through landscape and weather, leaves falling off trees, overnight storms, timeless elements which, irrespective of human endeavour, have always been there and, as long as there is life and snow, will always be there.
I think that usually the risk in trying to write children in fiction is the tendency to make them too cute or something.
Writers who aren't from rural states in the Midwest or the West often treat such people as if they were the Waltons or the Beverly Hillbillies.
Writing is the hardest thing I know, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I wrote for 20 years and published nothing before my first book.