Writing gives me a chance to meld my worlds: the real world where I live day by day in the physical sense and the world in my mind which parallels my mental world. What do I mean?

I see two people sitting together in a café. They may be leaning toward one another as if in deep conversation. That's the physical world, the world I can see. In my head, I'm running a number of scenarios. They are friends planning an intervention for a mutual friend. They just met and are finding that they have so much in common that they are making a life-long connection. They are lovers so wrapped up in their particular bubble that I don't even exist. My imagination runs rampant, and often it flows into a scene I'd like to add to something I'm currently writing.

I find out more about myself and the world around me by this dual exploration of the real and the imaginary.

At the end of 2020, I'm working on a number of stories. A Is for unAvailable is a second chance story told from the viewpoint of a man who decides to attend his fifteenth high school reunion and return the letter jacket his lover gave him. Ox in Love is an opposites attract story from the viewpoint of a large, lumbering orderly who is studying to become a nurse and the accountant who loves him.

Given time, I would also like to finish two more Foothills Pride stories: How to Mend a Wooden Heart and Buckaroo.

Because I love to write holiday stories, I'll also write my yearly Christmas tale to make readers feel the warmth of the holiday spirit.

Mostly contemporary MM novels although I like paranormal fantasy also.

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle. I had one of the first ones sold, and my husband laughs that Jeff Bezos owes me lots of money for promoting his device. I can't tall you how many times I've been in a café or restaurant reading when someone will come over and ask about it. My Kindles don't look like regular Kindles because I use Decal Girl skins--at the moment a huge close-up red rose--which make them distinctive.

My first Kindle went to my daughter when I bought my second one. My second went to the same daughter when I got K3, and she gave K1 to her mother-in-law. Then my son-in-law bought my daughter a Fire, so the second came back to my Luddite husband who has actually said he likes it.

So our K-universe has gone round and round. (Since I first answered this question five years ago or so, I've upgraded and upgraded. I now have a paperwhite that I love and a Fire on which I play games. My husband is now a Kindle addict.)

Let's see, starting from the left on the wall in front of me: (revised)
* a poster of Renoir's The Boating Party, my favorite painting which I saw in person at the Phillips Gallery in D. C.
* a chart of Chinese Radicals from the semesters when I took Chinese calligraphy (now in possession of my grandson who is learning Chinese)
* a poster reading "It's a Crime you're leaving" signed by all the people I worked with when I was the TV editor at the Journal Newspapers in suburban D. C.
* a painting of The Spectators at the Crucifixion done by an inmate at the Texas State Prison that I bought when I was an art reviewer for the Houston Post
* a detailed map of Great Britain that I bought when I started reading historical romances and wanted to know where the various towns were located
* framed covers from the DSP version of the first four Foothills Pride books, and a poster of the entire series covers by JMS Books

On the door:
* a photo of Big Bird in a library
* a photo of Jim Henson operating Kermit the Frog
* a cartoon of a young girl asking her mother, who is bending over the washing machine, "You mean you don't get paid for this?"
* a cartoon of two women, one saying, "I've got quite a bit out of the Creative Writing class. I've decided to become a literary agent."
* a cartoon of two women, one asking, "How's the mystery novel going?" The other answers, "They say to write what you know, but I can't get up the nerve to kill anyone."
* two prints, a Vermeer of a woman writing and a Renoir of a river with boats
And across the middle of the door, a sign reading "Employees Only"