I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.

Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it's beginning to stretch its range as well.

So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians.

First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It's also about politics.

I think the diversity of authors and readers is expanding, which is wonderful, because it means the type of story being told is also expanding.

Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is.