I work with Jo at Boruma Publishing and Moira Nelligar, a graphic artist who has many covers under her belt. They do a great job of making my vision a reality.

I give Jo and Moira a basic idea of what I am looking for, as well as one or two pictures I pull off of various websites, such as Bigstock Photo. Sometimes they use what I send them. Other times, Jo and Moira use my description of what I am looking for as a template for a more adventurous design. A great example of this is the cover for "The Snow Maid." Jo pushed the envelope to give me a beautiful, ethereal cover, where my Snow Maid is in the foreground, as well as having a scene from the book in the background. To this day it is my favorite cover.

I love fantasy, which I think can be seen by my output. Some of my favorite authors are Jim Butcher, Jacqueline Carey (her prose is amazingly sensual) and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Messy! Right now it has a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, stacks of sticky-notes, and yellow legal pads I am always shuffling around to find notes I wrote several days ago.

I grew up in central Illinois, what Chicagoans like to call "downstate". I don't really think it has influenced my writing much, except to give me a deep sympathy for the American farmer and working class, who are too often ignored by the political elites and mainstream media.

I first tried writing when I was in college. I wrote about forty pages (longhand!) of a fantasy novel that was pretty much a blatant rip-off of "The Hound and the Falcon" series by Judith Tarr.

As far as writing erotica, I just started within the last year. I saw some works on Literotica, decided that I could write better than that, and started pounding out ideas.

Currently I am working on two separate books. The first has had the first two installments already published (The Witch's Daughter and The Witch's Cousins). It deals with a modern-day coven of witches living in Des Moines, and deals with themes of incest, loyalty, and love.

The second is also set in Des Moines (the thought of the supernatural taking over a small midwest city makes me laugh). This will be the "Satyrday Saga", and follows the adventures of one young man after he is given a magical bracelet by a priestess of Bacchus.

I posted several chapters of my first book (Guardians of Heklos) on Literotica. About halfway through I thought that this book might actually be good enough to try to publish for money. Laura Lovecraft, who has a strong online presence, recommended me to Boruma Publishing and carnal-pleasures. Jo and Becca Sinh at CP have been amazingly supportive throughout the entire process.

Other writers have commented on this, so I will merely add my thoughts. Writing the erotica part of erotica stories is actually the most tedious part of the process. What I love most is plotting out what draws the characters together, why they may or may not fall in love (or lust) and the build-up as they realize their attraction to each other.

I have several stories in the hopper. Once I get done with The Coven Chronicles and Satyrday, I will throw a dart and start working on the one it hits!

As far as erotica is concerned, I owe an enormous debt to Jacqueline Carey. Her Kushiel series taught me that a person could write arousing sex-scenes that were still literary in nature.

The thought of living in a dumpster.