I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author.

When I'm not at the keyboard, I'm generally reading, practicing tai chi or middle eastern dance, or cooking.

First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It's also about politics.

I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier.

Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work.

I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

My joking answer to this question is that I leave a bowl of milk out on the back porch every night for the Idea Fairy. In the morning, the milk is gone and there's a brand-new shiny idea by the bowl.

Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.

Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it's beginning to stretch its range as well.

Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.

Wonderland was wonderful, but without a counterbalance, it could turn it's inhabitants completely insane.

Forgiveness is hard for me, man. It is for most American-Western males. It's a sign of weakness.

The great fear I've had to overcome is the fear of failure. It can be safer to stay in a comfort zone that's not stretching yourself.

I'm looking for the surprises, you know, and the unexpected moments of technology, the unexpected moments of musical creation.

Allowing Texas to display the Ten Commandments on State property but disallowing Kentucky courthouses from doing the same is a poor and flawed interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

And by the Sacred Parchment, I swear that if I reveal the secrets of The Stonecutters, may my stomach become bloated and my head be plucked of all but three hairs

When you let people put you up on a pedestal, you step one step in any direction, and you're going to go down.

He certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.

In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.

The difference between directing film and directing television is so stark simply because TV is a living breathing organism already when you direct an episode.