It took some time to gather the research and develop it into the storyline, and to finally finish an origin myth poem that I had been working on for twenty years.

I had an idea for a story about a young woman who was living with people who were different, not just superficially different - such as hair colour, or eye colour, or skin colour - but different in some significant way.

I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.

No, my publisher has always done the marketing.

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

Of the two, I would think of my work as closer to Science Fiction than Fantasy.

I had tears coming out of my eyes. And it was the characters that got me there.