I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author.

If I get blocked, it is generally because I don't know enough about some aspect of the story or the characters. The answer for this is generally more research, or making more background notes, so the place and person can be more fully realized inside my own mind.

I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier.

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

I did not feel I could create a more beautiful or interesting Mars than Kim Stanley Robinson or Greg Bear had, so I turned my attention elsewhere.

Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.