In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

Since fantasy isn't about technology, the accelleration has no impact at all. But it's changed the lives of fantasy writers and editors. I get to live in England and work for a New York publisher!

Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl...there was a boy...there was a person who was in trouble. And this is what she did...and what he did...and how they learned to survive it. This is what they did...and why one failed...and why another triumphed in the end. And I know that it's true, because I danced at their wedding and drank their very best wine.

We've always lived in dark times. There has always been a range of human experience from the sublime to the brutal, and stories reflect it. It's no less brutal now; each age has its horrors.

Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road. . . .

When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.

I wanted to be a scientist. But I had no math skills.