I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, amongst people who are born storytellers. My father is Cajun by heritage and Cajuns do love our stories. My father could make the dullest courtroom proceeding sound like the funniest thing you ever heard. My mother is an English teacher, so I had a strong start in telling stories and how to write them properly. Louisiana is full of colorful story telling traditions, and I benefitted from it.

I started writing around the age of eight, when I started using my grandfather's book spiral binding machine to make books about magic unicorns for my younger sisters. As I moved into my teens, my writing was honed by writing fanfiction for my favorite shows and posting them on fan boards. The positive reviews from the people who read them encouraged me to develop my writing skills.

My latest book, "Fugue," is the story of a young woman who wakes up one morning to discover it is five years later, she has a child she doesn't remember, who seems to have psychic abilities, and they are being followed for strange reasons she can't remember. I developed the idea for a story after reading some articles about people who suffered similar states, such as the case of a woman who woke up one morning thinking she was still seventeen, having lost something like twenty years of her life. She didn't remember her daughter or husband. Another man from Florida vanished one day and turned up years later in Colorado under another name, having forgotten his previous identity. The stories intrigued me.

My "real" job is as a librarian in a public library system, so I am a bit familiar with the publishing process for traditional publishing, as well as the kinds of books that come from traditional publishing houses. As I process new releases, I thumb through them, and notice what a wide variety exists in the quality. Many are very well written, but some really are not. The stories are bland, the dialogue is not engaging. I've read so many indie author books that were so much better, and when you consider how little the author makes from traditional publishing, on top of how much effort and trouble you have to go through to get an agent and be recognized, I decided that going independant was less of a headache and more fulfilling. There really is no major difference in the quality of stories in traditional published books versus indie published, when you get down to it.

I was very excited to learn about Smashwords and to be able to get my ebook version of my first novel out to as many locations as possible. "Cast your net wide" is great advice. I hope this means that more people will have the opportunity to read my stories.

A story for me usually starts as sort of an imaginary movie in my mind. I actually see the scenes play out, hear the dialogue, and in some cases, even feel the emotions so strongly they bring me to tears. When I have such a powerful story in my mind, it is always there, bugging me, retelling itself, until I write it down. For me, writing stories is a release, a relief, a creative outlet that I need to keep my pwoerful imagination in check, lest I spend all my day daydreaming and never get anything done, like the laundry. The second greatest joy is when complete strangers read it and tell me how much they liked it. When people would review my fanfiction as a teen, people I knew were adults, who told me they loved it, it was really a great boost for my self esteem which was suffering at the time. I never get tired of hearing people say they like my stories.

A great deal. I have fans who still follow me on fanfiction boards, since I still post a story here and there, depending on what show or movie I'm crushing on at the moment, but fanfiction writing is, for me now, mostly an exercise when I get writer's block on whatever novel I am working on. But the praises, and even the criticisms, of those fans helps keep me focused. The positive reviews from fans remind me why I love telling stories, but ironically, it's the negative reviews that help me hone my writing skills. I know I make mistakes, and when my fans point them out, it helps me develo and grow as a writer. As for my novels, I'm still a new author when it comes to novels, so I don't really have a fan base yet, but I'm looking forward to meeting them!

Currently, I am working on a story entitled "The Girl in Gray," which is about a young woman who disguises herself as a man during the American Civil War and joins the army. She is looking for a group of rogue soldiers who destroyed her home and killed her parents. It's a story I have wanted to write for a couple of years now and kept getting put on the back burner, but now it's time for it to be told. It's requiring a good bit of research, and I am discovering how common this actually was for women to dress as men and join the army, on both sides.

I have always liked Stephen King, for his daring to write the kinds of stories he does and his command of atmosphere. While George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series is not typically the kind of genre I enjoy, I love him for his writing genius and his brilliance with dialogue. When I get stuck on dialogue, I always reread some of his stuff. My two favorite books, however, are "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova and "Room" by Emma Donaghue. Both are very well written and make great use of point of view.

My husband and son, reading and writing, and strong coffee, usually in that order. My cats should get an honorable mention though. They are the reason I don't need an alarm clock.