Dear Mr Conwell:
I am long-time reader and occasional letter writer. When I was a young teenager( I’m 23now,) I got an idea for a Civil War novel and gave up because I thought the place I set up my fictional unit was too contrived and I think I was too young to create characters that functioned as passable people rather than stereotypes of what I thought both Irish people and adults in general acted like.   But as I was doing research for a project on labor history in Pennsylvania at University I discovered there was a civil war era unit formed not far where I had placed mine. And the fire was lit again. It’s just interesting that the characters from my novel as a teenager won’t fall away after so many have and I feel them change and become more realistic as I read more about the war. I just wonder if that ever happened to you? Should I trust the ghosts of characters rattling around in my brain or focus on newer writing?
Also  the historical novelist Robert Goolrick told me at a book signing that he thought writing historical novelist was to create your historical reality like a movie set designer and drop your characters into it and let it shape them. I wonder if you could comment on your process.
And lastly, I kind of feel conflicted about my writing sometimes. I have a great aversion of war out of generally pacifist principals (these weren’t forced views like those of your adopted parents–I watched a friend mine who fought in Vietnam die slowly of agent orange induced cancer and it made me hate war, really. And yet, I love books like yours, Patrick O’Brien’s and John Jakes and even Morgan Llywelyn’s that find adventure in war. Can one write stories like that because they find those situations interesting and yet not give credence to war itself? One of my friends who its Philosophy major suggested I was being hypocritical. What do you think of that?
I know this much to consider and thanks for your time. Also I wanted to thank you for sending a birthday wish to me via Facebook the other day. When you do that with your fans, it always makes me crack a smile.
Sincerely,
Adam Azzalino