Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I was born in Tanzania, lived in India for a year before moving to Michigan when I was ten. This varied background gave me a strong sense of empathy for different cultures, and this has helped me write some characters that would otherwise have been tough, like the Iraqi insurgent in The Struggle. This also means that a lot of my writing doesn't have the normal morals that a lot of authors naturally rely on.
When did you first start writing?
When I was 6 or so. It was a class assignment, but I remember taking it several steps further and writing pages and pages of a story. I loved it!
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