Dear Mr. Cornwell, I’m a fan, of course, and a kind of writer in my own right (poetry), though I’m utterly unknown and broadly unpublished. Have read all your books, so far as I am aware. My favorites would have to be the Arthur books. Derfel is a favorite character. I wanted to write and say I found your writing advice helpful (the essay on your website under www.bernardcornwell.net/chapters/writingadvice.htm). You know, you claim there that you’re not writing high stakes literature but fiction, yet, in my opinion, the opening paragraph of the first book of the Arthur trilogy is nothing short of fine literature. The plot for the series is also very fine, and much of the subject matter is of great ‘historical’ import, including the conflict between Christian & pagan religions. Perhaps you only meant to tell the tale as best you could, but isn’t that really what high-stakes fine literature is all about? At any rate, I also wanted to tell you, for the sake of courtesy if nothing else, that I put the link to your ‘writing advice’ on my blog. Actually, I put it up there almost a year ago, so my courtesy notice is a bit late. But you see, I was in the process of revising the blog’s HTML tags and remembered it. I hope you don’t mind. You are welcome to tell me whether I’ve read anything into your ‘advice’ that isn’t there. I wouldn’t want to misrepresent a favorite author! But I do wish to point other nascent writers to your ‘advice,’ because too many of them are likely to pay for those horrible writing workshops, rather than learn by reading and emulating successful authors. Good day, –Matt Barber