We have a shotgun we inherited from my father-in-law, a paranoid Englishman living in Texas. I have a .22 Marlin rifle, similar to the one Annie Oakley had, and my husband has a .357 Magnum pistol. All those are locked up tight, of course. We have a couple of pellet guns that get more use than the real guns.

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

I think back when I was kind of a crappy writer, I really did know my time was better spent working and having adventures and seeing the world.

I'm pro-life, in the sense that chaos seems like life to me and order seems like death.

The best and easiest lesson for me was to learn that writing is mostly hard work.

I have a second-degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo weapons training.

Maybe the hardest lesson is the one I have to learn over and over again, that each story is its own animal, that every story I write is going to come only with difficulty.