Though Anne was born in Alabama and schooled in Mississippi, she had traveled North, and, like many Southerners, gained a theoretical understanding of the concept of cold. But the mind is an overprotective parent. What it doesn't care for, it hides. Like many inhabiting the subtropics, Anne had repressed the reality of subzero mercury.

I do interviews and signings and readings and all of these people just hang off my every word. And then I go home and have dinner with my family and nobody lets me get a word in.

I’m adding ‘canine’ to my searches,” I said. “And ‘instinct.’” “Whatever. I’m adding ‘lunatic.

Channel your outrage ... Do that which you are able to do.

You'll start talking, and pretty soon we'll all start nodding, and then the next thing you know, I'm hang gliding off the Eiffel Tower at night, being chased by ninja vampires

I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.

Violence wounds the body and it wounds the soul. Of the predator. Of the prey. Of the mourners. Of collective humanity. It diminishes us all.