First and foremost I am a commercial writer, and I hope to entertain people. But having said that, I'm in love with the relationship between humans and dogs, and the more I learned about what our military working dogs are doing, I wanted to at least share with people what an important role these animals have in all our lives.

Everything we are is anchored in our childhoods. The drama comes in how we deal with it. Are we slaves to our past, or can we rise above it? This is the stuff of great stories.

I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon 'Little Sister.' I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction.

What they smell isn't the emotion of fear. What dogs can smell is the changes in a person's skin that suggest fear to the dog, anxiety, the way your skin sweats, the amount of uric acid that suddenly pours out of your pores.

Lucy took a single plain donut from the bag and held it for me to take a bite. Tender and light and still warm from the frying. Not too sugary.

People want you to be ordinary. They don't like it when people are different. They don't like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you're special; it reminds them of everything that they aren't.

L.A.'s magic has let me see every level of the dream.