Even if you live in a big city, everybody lives in a small town. We identify ourselves by our neighborhoods - 'I live in the Village, or in Chelsea.'

On the Web we all become small-town visitors lost in the big city.

I grew up in a small town in Georgia where nothing bad happened - it was like Mayberry.

My dad grew up in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, desperate to get to London. I grew up in London, so I don't know what it's like to yearn for the big city from a small town.

I didn't want to spend the next thirty years writing about bad things happening in the same small town - not least of all because people would begin to wonder why anyone still lives there!

Living in a small town, I knew everybody and everybody knew me.