I always wrote; my first story was published in the magazine The American Girl when I was 11

I love to sing. I'm a soprano.

I believe that to create real-seeming characters, the writer must be willing to go on a voyage of self-exploration. It can be revealing and even painful to explore your own weakness, but it gives you genuine emotion. Characters in fiction come alive because of the believability of their emotional lives and that is what I strive to create.

I think Peter Dickinson is hands down the best stylist as a writer and the most interesting storyteller in my genre.

Sisters in Crime now has more than 4,000 members worldwide.

Hard to remember who is more dangerous: the people who are attacking our liberties overseas, or those who are suppressing them at home.

I grew up in conservative rural Kansas in the 1950s when it was expected that girls would not have a life outside the home, so educating them was a waste of time