Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.

I myself was born in Sacramento, California in 1966.

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.

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

Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work.

When I was in college, I spent a summer working in London. I'd enjoyed tea before that, but then I got actual, really good tea there and never looked back.

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.