You read it here first. I'm about to waste the dwindling amount of time left to me by embarking on another no-doubt-doomed literary undertaking. It will be a novel set in three or more fictional cities, linked by character and/or circumstance--I haven't figured that part out yet. But these cities already exist in the demented world of my fiction. Killoyle, of course, is one. New Ur of the Chaldees, that charming college town in Ohiowa, U.S.A., is another, and both will be in the new book. Sandrapore, India, birthplace of the great Anil Swain, probably will, as well. Then there are other places: Killouaille, Killoyle's sister city in Brittany, France; Citta Assoluta, resort town on the Italian Riviera; St. Anselms, an old cathedral town on the Fullish River in East Anglia....

The proximate cause of this inspiration was rereading some of Jan Morris's excellent work, and contemplating her imaginary city, Hav of the Myrmidons. If my magical mystery tour is half as much fun as hers, it won't be such a waste of time after all. Now, to work...