August 2002 1. Why did you choose the mystery genre? I've always read and liked mysteries. Now it probably seems hard to imagine, but when I started writing my first book, Death by the Riverside, there just weren't that many lesbian detective novels out there, (certainly none that used the name Cordelia). I just wrote the book that I wanted to read. I wish I could say that I had some grand scheme, that this was all thought out and analyzed, but I really just followed the words on the pages.

"Feel free to elaborate if there's a good anecdote but please keep answers down to no more than a couple of sentences. Anything you don't want to answer just leave. We will pick your best answers so that we have a good selection across respondents. Ok, you've got 20 minutes and no cheating please girls ...

1.What drew you to writing? Why mysteries? Family values--my parents met as journalists on the same newspaper and they were both college educated (my mother the first in her family) so reading and books were always part of my growing up. They both wanted to be writers, too, but life never gave them the chance. I can't really remember not wanting to be a writer, I was writing short stories in third grade. As to mysteries, I've always liked mysteries and read them. Let's be real, part of that was practical; it's easier to sell a mystery both to publishers and to readers.