Everything but horror. I worked at Amazon.com for three years, where I had access to thousands of free print books. I used that opportunity to snag anything that sounded interesting, which greatly expanded my reading horizons! I grew up reading almost exclusively Fantasy, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter, but my shelves are now very eclectic--from epic Medieval French poems in the original middle French to narrative nonfiction to historical romances. In fact, since my house has a built-in bookshelf that runs all along my dining room, the first thing guests are drawn to are my books!

I own a 3rd-generation Kindle, only because I used to work at Amazon. My next e-reader will be a Kobo; I love that you can buy books through your local independent bookstore on it!

I grew up in a small town north of Seattle. Seattle was the big city, the place we sat in traffic to visit once a quarter, visiting the same 3 places each time. The town I grew up in had little in the way of a downtown, and even less in the way of entertainment. Since it took 20 minutes to get anywhere exciting by car, I spent a lot of time reading in order to find the adventures I so desperately craved. I read my way through my school libraries and my town library. I also played make-believe a lot, often including my little brother and any willing neighborhood children, creating imaginary adventures for us to go on. It wasn't much of a leap from there to start writing down these imaginary adventures. I always try to write the adventures that I would have loved to live, often set in far-off places or times.

The first time I called myself a writer I was in fourth grade, but I have "books" that I wrote for class in third and second grade, too. For the second grade book we each created a stamp to use on the cover. I made mine in the shape of a first-place ribbon.
I wrote a lot of bad poetry in middle school (didn't we all? Please say yes.), and made a few attempts at a novel. I got the idea for my first Fantasy novel when I was 12, and those characters have stuck with me ever since.

I still have it, actually. It's the story from second grade with the 1st-place ribbon stamps dotting the cover. It was about me (as a unicorn) and my two best friends (as a cat and a rabbit) helping to build our school's new playground. I actually did help build the new playground--the Kids Oasis--and it's still standing and being enjoyed by kids at that school today, just like the ending to that first story.

This is a concept I've been working on for over a decade, struggling to figure out how to make it say what I want it to say. It's partly about my experience studying abroad in France as a 16-year-old on September 11, 2001, and coming "home" to the Seattle area in August 2012. A completely different country greeted me than the one I had left, and I had severe reverse-culture shock. For a long time I thought the only place I could feel at home was France. This novel takes the idea of nationality and turns it on its head, making it a more conscious decision than a random act of birth, but is set in a Medieval Fantasy world.

I do a lot of writing in my head before I commit anything to paper (or screen). Of course, what I end up writing down is never exactly what I had in my head... When I'm writing novels, I write in longhand, on sturdy notebooks. That's my draft 0.0, as one of my writing friends just called it. Draft 1.0 is typing those hand-written pages, which is where I do my first round of editing. Then it's off to the races with on-screen editing, though I'll also print out the full draft and edit on paper to catch all those pesky typos. If I'm writing a short story, though, I tend to go directly to the computer.

My day job takes up most of my time. Outside of that and writing, I read a lot, and try to attend as many local author events as possible. My fiancé and I love to cook, take classes, and travel. And when we're not actually traveling, I'm typically daydreaming about where our next trip might take us. I also carve out some time for freelance editing and the occasional consultation on e-publishing.

I love the exploratory nature of writing. When I'm writing a character, I get to become someone else entirely for a while. I do research into weird topics, like Parisian fashion inspired by the Eiffel Tower. I've taken broadsword lessons and chainmaille classes; I've spent a week at a castle and been accidentally locked inside a French graveyard, all for the sake of research and getting to know my characters better. The better I know them, the better I can let them tell their stories to the world. And if I'm lucky, my characters will allow readers to experience a point of view they hadn't encountered previously. And hopefully have some adventures along the way!

I have a few more short stories in the pipes: A Steampunk short set in the same alternate 1889 Paris as "The Heart Is the Matter," published in Ann VanderMeer's wonderful anthology Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution. A Fantasy story about a lord who was turned into a dragon, and then back into a man, in the vein of "The Match Makers." A Sci-Fi short about a near future where mega-corporations decide everything for individuals, in the vein of "Mind Melding."