2 Memories and fears W hat were the most significant events of your child- hood? Do you find yourself drawing on them, directly or indirectly, in your writing? Many writers do. Willa Cather claimed: Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. F Scott Fitzgerald gave it a bit longer: A writer can spin on about his adventures after thirty, after forty, after fifty, but the criteria by which these adventures are weighed and valued are irrevocably settled at the age of twenty-five.