Writer

I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.

Most of my books begin with a nap on my couch here, when I dream up characters and story lines, and then I write on my laptop in the recliner and handle the business side of email at my desk, which is sagging in the middle - maybe from so many words?

I write fifteen hours a day, stopping at Oprah-o'clock.

No matter where you are on the political spectrum, libraries make sense. It's such a small investment. Every dollar supporting a library system returns five dollars to the community.

I love reading almost as much as I love writing.

I paid for my name a lot when I was growing up because other kids teased me.

No crime lab in the world looks like the 'CSI' ones because there's simply not the money for all those fancy machines.

It sounds pretentious to say I 'divide' my time, but when I am home, that usually means my house in Atlanta or my cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. The latter is where I do the majority of my writing.

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task.

I set the goal of getting a book contract by age thirty.

I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where, for the first time in my life, I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books.

No crime lab in the world looks like the 'CSI' ones because there's simply not the money for all those fancy machines.

I read extensively about serial killers and all sorts of things people get up to.

Anyone who's been to high school with teenage girls knows how horrible girls can be.

Reading is power. Reading is life.

I'm going to name a name: Janet Evanovich. She writes the same book over and over, and I read every single one of them and eagerly anticipate them.

As a writer, I've always felt it's my job to be extremely careful when writing about victims, especially women.

Good writers know that crime is an entre into telling a greater story about character. Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

Pushing the boundaries of polite society does not just fall under the purview of crime fiction authors.

People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.