Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
Bob Hope like Mark Twain had a sense of humor that was uniquely American and like Twain we'll likely not see another like him.
My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain Earnest Hemingway Jack London Harriett Beecher Stowe Pearl Buck Charles Dickens Rudyard Kipling Alfred Lord Tennyson to name a few.
You know the best thing about competition? There's this whole strategy game and when it all works out its like solving that hard math equation. You finally get the answer and you're so happy.