I come from a one-by-three-mile town: Seaford.
Franchises and chains have come to dominate small communities, but those same chains have eliminated a lot of the greasy spoons, places you didn't want to eat in the first place.
But I love Chicago summers on Lake Michigan, Philly cheesesteaks on South Street, falling in love in Brooklyn, street fairs in Asheville, North Carolina.
I like where I lived in Alnwick; I always tell people about it. There's so much to do there, even though it's so small and quaint.
We were in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. It's a nice town, but it's aggressively quaint. They've got a popcorn shop above a waterfall and parades that come through town. It's all-American.
I like being able to walk into an old town and find good local food.
Ain't that America, home of the free? Little pink houses for you and me.
Childhood is the small town everyone came from.
It was very much like Norman Rockwell: small town America. We walked to school or rode our bikes, stopped at the penny candy store on the way home from school, skated on the pond.
I lived in Minnesota in a small town.
I'm a sucker for lost worlds. I was nostalgic even as a child. I was happiest in my hometown library in Adams, Mass., where nothing seemed to change.
I often think of setting as an important character in my story. 'Dark Powers' takes place in Doncaster, a Maryland Eastern Shore community rich with watermen and historic atmosphere. I modeled it after a stunning little town called St. Michaels, but since a lot of bad things happen in Doncaster, I changed the name.
Indiana is much, much, much slower than California, and I love it.
Just growing up in Columbus, which is such a special place, small town with a Fortune 500 company's headquarters, the extraordinary modern architecture. The experiences that I've had growing up in that very unique hometown has shaped me and always will shape me.
Charlotte, it's what somebody from New York or L.A. would say is a small town, but it isn't. It's right in between being a small town and a city. It's more of a city.
Im from Tomball: Tomball, Texas. Its a small town on the northwest side of Houston. I dont think it's as country as people make it seem. It's actually growing. But don't go there without me, man, because they'll take your shoes and all of that.
I used to live in Pillgwenlly, and there was this old Italian pizzeria that used to be there with a really amazing character who ran it.
I'm a normal kid from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
It took me coming to the Midwest to realize I was the jerk. People are so nice here. They're so grounded.
Suburbia, to me, was the most fantastical, unusual place. I thought it was Disneyland.
I don't live in L.A. or in New York. I live in Virginia by the ocean.
My home town was really great to me. If you've ever watched 'The Andy Griffith Show,' it's like Mayberry.
Well I am from Annapolis Maryland. I went to High school in Baltimore, but I grew up in Annapolis. It was a cute town. We lived on a waterfront community. It was good, even though I don't really fit the preppy boater kind of style.
I've gotten to really, really like being back in the States. It's so easy being in your own country, and I really like Americans - typical American towns and provincial college towns are my ideal place to be.
Life here (in the Pacific Northwest, not in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland or the chain of buildings connecting them but in the rest of the place, out west and east from the north-south I-5 river) can sometimes feel like a half-dream, half-myth.
