I tend to read on my iPad Air, but I turn down the brightness a bit. I find reading on my iPhone harder, but that's a function of age not desire!

My pug, Teddy, my cat, ZsaZsa, and my wife Karyn--obviously in reverse order! Pretty much!

1 Apple All-in-One desktop computer, one keyboard on which most of the letters have been rubbed off from use, hard pounding use, earphones, calculator, notebook, small tray for incoming mail that fills up faster than I can empty it, two pens, one of which fails me often, one back-up hard drive that I don't know how to use, one USB that I do, one coaster for my coffee, placed precariously in the corner of the desk, two sets of post-it note pads, which really should be outlawed for writers who use them and lose them. My desk is really a small horizontal oak table that we picked up in Los Angeles at a flee(sic) market. It has one drawer. That drawer is full. OK...the truth? My wife has outlawed piles of paper. To assist me in my search for the perfect desk, she chose this table because there is NO ROOM FOR PILES OF PAPER. Clearly, she's trying to kill me.

I was born outside London, in Hampshire, and grew up in Peoria, Illinois. My writing was influenced hugely by time spent in the small local library, time spent being in trouble with the Domenican nuns who taught me and time spent in a treehouse studying the sky, the trees and the birds in a futile attempt to figure out where I fit in all of this.Had there been any bees with those birds, I might have had a better time! ;-)

Age 6, a play. One of a handful of my pieces that did not end up on Broadway.

I wanted to write what I wanted to read. I wanted to write on my own time schedule, which is pretty much daily. I wanted to mix history with elements of the GLBTI world--so, humor and fab outfits! I wanted to make some spare change. I have accomplished all my goals, and carry the spare change in my pocket. It is far from full. Still, I love writing, and I love when what I write or how I write it strikes a chord in someone. Also? I get the fan letters! OK, I've had five. Do you have ANY idea how many people in just this country go through their entire lives and NEVER get a piece of fan mail? See?

Well, I have 49, and they mean the world to me. Some of them have become my unofficial "crew"--spreading the word when a new book of mine comes out, "liking" my dumb cat and dog pictures on FB, sloshing valiantly through some of my so-called long-form essays on one of my blogs and just generally being super supportive people. I actually have more than 49, by now, but those first 49 are like, I don't know, like people who want to honor with a special designation, like the Virgin Cheerleaders, or, no, the Unsullied Clappers...well, I will find a special name for them. Is the 49ers taken?

Speaking of fan mail...I once received three letters from Mark Coker in two days. Waaayyyyy back when I first started, I thought I wanted an exotic pen name. An hour later, I decided I didn't. I wrote to Mark. He answered, he fixed it, he followed up with 'thanks for using SW'--so you have Mark to thank for T. T. Thomas, which is kind of a pen name too, but so much closer to the truth than Una Bombay...or was Una one of my characters in one of the books I'm still writing? So many personas, so little time. Thanks, Mark!

I suppose it would be the pure joy of creation, refinement, production, and voila a novel! It never gets old.

If I tell you, you have to go shopping with my wife. No, I won't accept money. You shop with her, instead of me shopping with her, and I promise, you will get a first preview of my next book. Deal?