Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.

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.

The Lord of the Rings movie set an entirely new standard for fantasy in the movies.

Can I help you?" he said, in a manner which indicated very clearly that not only did he not wish to help them, but also that he resented the implication that he ought to

He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.

If you're a leader, you don't push wet spaghetti, you pull it.

Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist.

While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.

Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling.

These are the days when birds come back, a very few, a Bird or two, to take a backward look.

If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.

Race in America is not a problem you can go over, or around or under. You've got to go through it.

I'm so fed up with being told that I'm a bad person because I don't subscribe to the same exact narrow views [Christians] have.