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If you could create one law, what would it be?

This is a hard one, because usually I think of which laws I would like to see abolished. The obvious socially responsible law would be one that said every corporation had to have some of its rank-and-file workers, some of its customers, and representatives of the communities that it affects on its board of directors. We might want to question the very existence of corporations, the idea that some people can hide behind this fictional person, the Corporation, and not have to take responsibility for what it does.

If you could visit any time in history, what would it be?

It would have to be prehistory. It maddens me that there is that 99 percent or more of human existence that we have to call prehistory because we don't know enough about it.

What are the sources of your best and most original ideas?

I just stare at the wall. A lot of people have the misconception that writers sit down at the computer and words just flow. Most of the process of writing is the process of thinking, which is not always done at the computer. It may even look like wasting time. We go through a lot of scrap paper -- but it's recycled.

What would you give up for a more human world?

I think we shouldn't think of what we would give up to have a more human world; we should think of what we would gain. The big things that we all need to gain are more time and less pressure.

Which current trend most troubles you?

There are so many of them, but I think the single thing that has been bothering me the most in the past six months or so is what I see as an increasing punitiveness, or hatefulness, toward the young. The most extreme cases are those politicians and social scientists who want to try child criminals as if they were adults and lock them up. This country is really becoming a teen hell.

We have a class of adults in this country who live very, very well and get to play like children. They get to ski in the winter and sail in the summer and do things that would be wonderful for kids to do. I think they want to have childhood to themselves. They resent the young and their claims on us -- especially the poor and the low-income young -- and vote against social spending for real children.

What is the most important thing you learned in writing Blood Rites?

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