Through Eighth Grade, my family moved at least once a year. I never settled into a school or a neighbourhood. So I have a lot of experience at being an outsider, seen as different or strange, not having quite the same background or shared experiences as the general crowd. So that probably has influenced the way I portray a lot of my leading characters, who also tend to be outsiders, or going against the cultural flow in how they choose to live. And for two years we lived in a house which had a resident poltergeist, which certainly contributed to my interest in the paranormal ... and my conviction that there are other Realms alongside ours, whether or not science has yet discovered an accurate way to identify their existence. We also often lived in semi-rural areas, where even though there were other houses around, there always seemed to be a wild area adjacent to our home ... a forested hillside, a river bank, or a grassy hillside with a spring running down it. I spent most of my childhood playing in those natural environments, and Nature has always seemed magical to me.

I probably started writing actual stories when I was about ten or eleven, mostly for school assignments. Although I was making up stories in my head long before that. I had a large collection of stuffed toy animals - the realistic Steiff ones, mostly - and also sets of plastic model dinosaurs. They all had names and relationships with one another, and I would create environments for them in my room, where I had them play out long epic stories that sometimes went on for days.

Hm, the one I'm writing now, the one I've just finished, or the most recent one I've published? Actually, there is one story behind all of them, since they are collectively, the Randolph Family Saga. I didn't realise I was starting a series of tales when I wrote the first one. I just wanted to see if I could write a novel based on one of my favourite Scottish traditional ballads (Tam Lin). That was in May, 2009. A never-sold screenplay based on the same story was lurking in a file drawer. I'd written that a couple decades earlier, during some futile years spent in Hollywood. One day I wondered if I could take the dialogue and wrap a bunch of prose around it, and change it into a novel. As soon as I started, it took on a life of its own. About mid-way through, the plot began to diverge more and more from both the old ballad and my earlier screenplay. By then I had gotten a degree in cultural anthropology, with an emphasis on anthropology of religion. So I had done a lot more reading, and thinking, on the subject of how women and female deities are viewed and portrayed by patriarchally-oriented cultures. I came to feel that the evil, sorceress-like female characters in folklore, used to be variations on the ancient Great Mother deity, but had been negatively propagandised through the influence of patriarchal, monotheistic values in recent centuries. So, my version of the Elfin Queen of Summerland (an alternate name for Elfland), is more like Aphrodite, Inanna, Shakti, Brighid, and so on. I didn't expect there to be a second book, let alone four, going on five now. But by the time I finished the first draft of Book One (The Ballad of Tam Lin), the second story was already clamoring to be written. The books follow the Randolph family (who have a very special relationship with the Other Side) down through the generations. So the first book is set in 1790, the second in 1813, third in 1833, fourth in 1851, fifth in 1873.

Ha! It only took one weekend (in 2011) spent at a big "authors, publishers, and agents" conference! First thing that bothered me was the way all the publishers' rep's kept reiterating that authors have to be prepared to push themselves into the public eye, have to be social-media-savvy, have to have their own website, to blog, tweet, connect with fans on Facebook, set up their own book tours using personal connections, spend a lot of their own money, etcetera! That the big companies just won't go to any effort at all, for about 95% of their chosen authors. My reaction to that was, "Well, if I'm going to have to do all that anyway, what's the big advantage to being with a Big Publisher?" Then there was the thing about it taking two years from the time they buy the rights, till the time it hits the stores. Hey, I'm not getting any younger here! And then there was the publisher's rep who stated unequivocally that "vampire novels were finished ... NObody is buying them any more ... all you authors out there in the audience, don't bother to write one, because the publishers have decided that the genre has run its course ... in two more years there will be NO MORE vampire novels being published," and similar pronouncements. Now, I don't write vampire novels, but I know a lot of people who thrive on reading them. That demand isn't going to just disintegrate like a staked vampire, JUST BECAUSE the Big Guys decide to cut off the supply. Moreover, I was rather disgusted, on principle, to hear that these big fat-cat corporate entities felt that they had the RIGHT to decide and dictate to the public, what they WOULD and WOULD NOT want to read, or even have access to reading. It seemed to me that if they could arbitrarily tell people "okay, you're through reading about vampires now" ... what was next? It sounded too much like censorship, verging on social control. What if the next thing they decide, is that "nobody will want to read anything that smacks of Neopaganism?" So, almost as soon as I dipped a toe into the corporate book-publishing waters, I didn't like the chilly temperature, or the slimy feeling either. (Hey, it's 3.5 years later - was she right? Have vampire novels disappeared from the major publishers' lists?) Finally, I realised that authors are the last of the people in the arts to be so psychologically locked-in to the idea of pleasing some bunch of corporate flunkies. Musicians and songwriters figured out years ago that the Internet could enable them to end-run around the big record companies, find their own fans and their own success on their own terms. New filmmakers are using YouTube and other websites to showcase their talents. Artists are creating online galleries for themselves, and getting their work seen far more widely than in one or two small galleries. Craftspeople are selling on Etsy. So if this is the wave of the future, as a fantasy writer I should be surfing it, not sitting high and dry on the beach, waiting for someone to give me "permission" to share my creativity widely.

Besides getting on with the Randolph Saga series, I'm hoping to pull together a short story collection, which will include my urban paranormal novella, "All The Elements." I seem to come up with a new filk song every few months, so maybe one of these days I'll make a CD.

In the fantasy and science fiction genre, Ursula K. LeGuin and Sir Terry Pratchett. I also like Neil Gaiman quite a bit, although his worldview tends to be a little dark for me. For mysteries, I enjoy Nevada Barr and Ann Cleeves. As far as classics, it's always been Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

My dog poking and snarfling all over me until I cooperate.

I take my doggie for a long walk every day. She was born in March 2013, so she's very lively, and needs daily exercise and training. That eats up about an hour. then I spend more time than I should, probably, servicing my social media presence. I have a website, which I try to keep very current. I've started a "short story of the month" feature there. I also just added a "book review" page there, and recopied some reviews of "nonfiction paranormal" books, which were previously on a blog website. I also blog on the website, occasionally, on literary topics. I have two public Pages on Facebook. One is for news & updates about my books and writing. The other is where I frequently write "Comments" (NOT reviews - more like my subjective reactions and ruminations), mostly about whatever I've watched lately - movies, TV movies, miniseries, a few select TV series, comedy programs, documentaries, and the occasional YouTube channel. Sometimes I also just write Comments on some aspect of contemporary culture. And when I have the chance, I go to the opera, or to a live musical performance by, usually, some top folk group or singer-songwriter, usually from the British Isles. I do most of my recreational reading in bed, before I fall asleep. I was given a beautiful new sewing machine a few months ago, and as soon as I learn how to operate it, I hope to get back into costume-making. I have plans to attend at least four science fiction-fantasy type conventions this year, including Westercon in San Diego in July, and Worldcon (Sasquan) in Spokane in August. Oh, and I do a bunch of housewifey stuff. When I have to. I make dinner a lot, Monday to Friday, because my husband gets home fairly late. And I bake most of my dog's biscuits. Yes, seriously.

Yes. It was an illustrated book about a lizard who wanders into a Natural History Museum, where they have dinosaur skeletons, and one comes to life and the lizard talks to the dinosaur and learns all about his forbears. I was about nine. I used to want to be a palaeontologist. Failing that, an archaeologist.

I create very extensive biographies and back-stories for all my leading characters. I work out the general shape of the story's dramatic arch - what the most significant events will be, for the central characters. I do a rough outline, which always changes. Then I let the characters start living the story, and a lot of the plot details emerge as a result of how the characters naturally behave, based on what I know about them as people. Because I have a background in directing theatre, I tend to write the dialogue first, sort of like a play script, and then go back and "direct" the characters, blocking their movements, giving them props and stage business, fine-tuning their emotional states from moment to moment. It's way easier than directing live actors, I can tell you.

Not sure if it was the very first story I ever read, since I was reading by age four. But the first one I remember with clarity - I might have been five - was a Golden Book about a dog who wanted to learn what the word "perseverance" meant. So he kept going around to all these other animals, asking everybody if they could tell him. Finally, of course, he found out that "perseverance" was exactly what he was doing, so his perseverance paid off, and he got his answer. The undeniable impact, is that I learned the word, which I hadn't known before. Whether it actually influenced my character, I have no idea. However, perseverance has been a pretty consistent, lifelong trait.

I have a great cover designer, Bill Oliver of Boy So Blue Graphic Arts. When I first saw his Page for his work on Facebook, I was amazed that his graphic vision of the Faerie world so thoroughly matched the way I see it in my mind when writing. So, cover design is actually a breeze. I tell Bill what the main themes and characters are in a book, and he magically creates something wonderful.

I read a lot of mysteries. And I keep going back and re-reading a lot of Sir Terry Pratchett's novels. I don't have favourites among Pratchett's work, but I do think that "Monstrous Regiment" is a brilliant satire on both gender issues and war, and wish everyone in the world would read it. Maybe it would make it harder for people to take war seriously. I think it's too much to hope, though, for people to stop taking their sexism seriously. I think that'll be the last thing to go, even after racism, which seems to be the biggest issue in the human psyche right now.

Giving them away for free, and advertising that fact on Facebook. It's not making me rich, but I like to imagine that it is making more people aware of my name and my work.

Like any fiction writer, I suppose, it's the opportunity to step far away from my own "real world" concerns for a while, to immerse myself in another reality, meet really interesting imaginary people, and follow the ups and downs of their fortunes instead of my own. I do also feel pleasantly surprised whenever I hear from someone that they have gotten some real enjoyment from what I've created. I'd love to feel that pleasant surprise more often, and invite readers to either post a review, or email me (there's an "email me" feature on my own website).

I think I have about seven now, that I know of, and they mean the world to me. They have all become my Facebook friends, and although I have not met all of them in person, through sharing ideas, I feel they are as real to me as friends, as people who became my friends in a more personal-contact way.