The Lord of the Rings, The Beast Master, Moon Called, Midnight Riot, The Pride of Chanur and Forests of the Night. I know, that's six and I could probably add more. Why are they my favs? The writing, the characters, the plot sings. As soon as I sit down and pick up one of these books (and their sequels), the movie in my head rolls and I'm in a different world.

Urban fantasy, fantasy, space opera, steamfunk, science fiction and a smattering of mysteries.

I have a Kindle, but I prefer hard copy.

Oooh, messy, messy, messy...

I'm a Cali girl, born and raised. The West Coast mix of liberals, hippies, tree huggers and conservatives have definitely helped me see a variety of people and their attitudes toward the environment, politics and other peoples.

I've been writing non-fiction for a long, long time. My first book was published in 1988. It took me nearly 10 years to recover and do it again. Now I'm dipping into fiction too.

Bitter was inspired by a conversation with author Neal Litherland (who writes wonderful fiction and nonfiction articles for Vocal Media). We were talking about the bitterness of the author's life and boom! Bitter coalesced into a full character -- middle aged, BIPOC, woman detective living in Sacramento, California. She pushed all my other projects aside and demanded that her stories be written.

My last nonfiction, 50 Fabulous Tomatoes for Your Garden, was inspired by my Mother, who was fascinated by the black tomatoes (Indigo Rose) I was growing in a pot. She jumped out of her truck to go look at them. She was so interested that I thought that other people would also be interested in delicious and easy-to-grow tomato varieties.

LOL, I'm a control freak when it comes to my books. I was a book designer for 10 years and have been writing nonfiction informational and how-to articles for years. I still write for eHow.com and SFGate.com. I'm pretty independent and being an indie author suits me.

Smashwords gives me the opportunity to publish and distribute my books among a variety of ebook vendors.

I'm working on 50 Hummingbird Magnets for Your Garden and the second Bitter nove -- crime meets urban fantasy in Las Vegas -- Bitter Sins. And yes, LOL, the covers are done already. You can get a sneak peek at my writing projects at www.ruthdj.weebly.com.

I have an idea and then I start working on it. I might do 10 or more revisions to get it just the way I want it. Remember, I was a book designer at AGS in San Francisco for Bill Yenne for 10 years. So doing the cover while I'm still working on the book comes naturally to me.

I don't have any choice about getting up -- I have little dogs. If the light is peeking around the blackout curtains and I so much as roll over, they start dancing on the bed until I get up and take them outside. If I'm lucky, they let me go back to bed. Sometimes I even get to sleep a little longer. Otherwise, the coffee pot is ready to flip the switch and start the day.