Dear Mr. Conwell: I’ve been an avid reader and question writer for you for many years.. I am also a fellow writer/ poet and as of late an aspiring historical novelist (You might recall a few of emails in which I mentioned I was writing a novel of Irish in the American Civil War. Now after many years of characters bouncing round in my head I have a clear plot and deadline I’d hope to have the bones of a story in; so I am just running with it!) You once told me and many others that a good piece of historical fiction should have a big story (the civil war etc) as a backstory and a little story that shows what happened to people caught up in those larger events. My question is: do like to put things from the larger context into the little story? For example as I read countless primary and secondary sources I often find what happened a nameless Captain or here or a Sargent over there is far more dramatic and far more hair-raising then anything I can contrive. I guess my question in essence is this: have you ever let history shape Sharpe rather than Sharpe, Sharpe shape history?

My second question is: do you ever feel you’ve made a character too much of a hero? For example I got done looking over Sharpe’s Company much like you did with Hornblower and I remember the scene where Harper tosses him over the wall and he fends off French bayonets with his sword and they back away because he is such a wild beast. While this is going I kept wondering: why doesn’t someone just put a ball in his head? Now I feel I’ve angered Sharpe and will be getting a late night visit! O,o

Lastly this is more of personal question but after reading The Fort I just had to ask. How do you feel about Independence Day? I know been a part of American life for a few decades now, but while it signaled the beginning of the United Sates, it was also one could say, the beginning on the end of the Greatness of Britain (But I shant enter that debate!) Thanks so much for all the years of entertainment and advice, Adam Azzalino PS: I saw on a youtube video that had you taking about AGINCOURT and someone had commented below, Cant wait to watch the movie version of this book. Please tell me they were not just getting my hopes up!