I lived in upstate New York until I was ten years old and we moved overseas. I have a lot of nostalgic memories of that part of the world, and I love going back there by writing the Lakeshore books.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was a boy, one of my uncles had a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. My family went there for parts of three summers, and I loved it!
My wife and I live in Brooklyn, N.Y., not too far from where my Long Island childhood happened.
I grew up in New York, and for the first ten years of my life, we lived across from the Metropolitan Museum. When I was an adult, I moved back to that neighborhood and lived there again.
Other than motherhood, the eight years that I spent at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I have incredibly fond memories of. It's a beautiful place, with four seasons up in Wisconsin. And really wonderful people.
I myself was born beside a river - the Avon in Sarum. So when I first encountered New York's great harbor and the Hudson River as a teenager, and came to understand their historic canal and railroad links to the vast spaces of the Midwest, I felt both the thrill of a new adventure and a deep sense of homecoming.
I grew up in Far Rockaway and then Long Island.
My mom used to take me down to the Jersey Shore when I was 7, 8, 9 years old. I can remember being down in that area - Belmar, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park and all those places that I went back and revisited.
In real life, I go to the North Shore with my kids for two weeks each summer, and it's a magical place for us. I feel restored there and connected to the ancient, pre - human world in a way that no place else on Earth does for me.
After spending 22 years in Ohio, I love everything about New York.
I lived in New York my whole life. Like every New Yorker, I have stories about spending summers on the Jersey shore, riding the roller coaster in Seaside that is now famous for that sickening photo of it being washed out to sea.