The author of WITH HITLER IN NEW YORK, LINCOLN'S DOCTOR'S DOG, I SURVIVED CARACAS TRAFFIC and other short story collections has kept a daily diary for forty years, since he was 18 in the summer of 1969. Here are entries from his diary for the autumn of 1978, when he was 27, living in Brooklyn with his family, writing short stories and about to have his first book published by a New York publisher.