Born and raised in Alabama, I grew up about forty miles from Harper Lee's home town. It was inevitable that her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, influenced my writing. I graduated from the University of Alabama with a BA in history and a burning desire to write, having grown up just down the road a piece from Harper Lee. I drew heavily on my Alabama roots for my first novel, Miss McGhee, published through Bywater Books, set during the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties. While wondering why the dictum write what you know doesn't apply to sci fi or murder mysteries, I dutifully set my second and third novels in the South as well, certain that the well of rich material to be found there will never run dry.