"Tampico, Tampico, on the bay of Mexico Where the women cook tortillas and the men say buenos dias." There are some other lines in the poem involving tamales and serapes but I can't recall them at the moment which is probably for the best. What I do recall is that the poem was the first piece of writing for which I ever got paid, my first royalty if you will. Our third grade teacher at P.S. 191 in Brooklyn asked the class to come up with a drawing, essay or other original work that might illustrate life in Latin America. "Tampico, Tampico" was my response to that homework assignment. At the time, the East New York Savings Bank was circulating a weekly newsletter in the public schools featuring items of local interest. Contained in the newsletter was a section devoted to short stories, drawings and poems produced by students in the schools. My teacher urged me to submit my poem...and so I did. Not only did the East New York Savings Bank publish "Tampico, Tampico" but they paid me a dollar for it! One of my great regrets in life is that I didn't save the dollar. Had I kept the bill, it would today be exhibited in an elegant walnut frame next to my computer as a reminder of the great sums to be made as a writer. But like most impulsive nine-year-olds, I hurried to a nearby candy store and before you could say "Jack Robinson," the money was gone. With the passage of time, I came to realize that I posed no threat to Robert Frost or Emily Dickenson...but the urge to write nevertheless endured. Over the years during which I taught at two major state universities, I published several professional books, including two on psychotherapy but what I really longed to do was write fiction. So after years of teaching, I surrendered my tenured position -- despite my colleagues' admonition to keep my day job -- and set out to write full-time. I found an agent who was enthused about a book I had in mind -- an historical novel about a young woman with mystifying symptoms who seeks the help of Sigmund Freud and subsequently becomes his mistress -- and began to write. About half-way through the first draft, my agent convinced me to temporarily shelve the novel and write a book that was percolating in the back of my mind about the hidden meaning of fairy tales. She argued that non-fiction sells better than fiction (despite the hoopla surrounding books like "The DaVinci Code" and "The Life of Pi") and that it would be easier to place my novel once publishers viewed me as "a published author." The result was "The Witch Must Die". Published by Basic Books, a division of Perseus, the book was warmly received and translated in more than half-a-dozen languages. The novel, titled "Emma von N.", has since been completed and currently is under consideration by several publishing houses. And that's where things stand at the moment. The journey from "Tampico, Tampico" to "Emma von N." hasn't been especially smooth but no one promised me a rose garden when I first started the voyage, and I've been lucky to smell some roses along the way.