I began writing serious short stories in the 1960's. I think of fiction as a way to say true things which aren't evident in the surface of facts. Of many of the U.S. story writers I admired deeply now the matrix for their characters seems ethnic and exclusive. I still like Joyce's Dubliners, Sherwood Anderson, Kate Chopin, Lu Xun, B. Traven, and for his writing under sheer oppression - Marek Nowakowski, among others. Submissions of my new book of stories were hassled in Canada and ignored in the States, so it remains unpublished.My "A Well Driller in the Rain" appeared in a small Boston review in 1977. - JBG