I can't remember a time when there weren't strange characters and places in my head, then I discovered books and found out I wasn't the only one. I would read anything that wasn't nailed down from comics to classics. One day it was Batman, Superman and the Xmen, the next I would be visiting Shangri la, or floating down the Mississippi with Mark Twain and Tom Sawyer. I fought with Dumas and the Three Musketeers. Stood with Dickens in the worst of times and best of times, or launched with Jules Verne's Captain Nemo. Dick Francis introduced me to the world of British horseracing and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro to history through a vampire named Saint Germain. I flew on dragonback through the skies of Pern and travelled Narnia, and heard Poe's Telltale Heart.  I saw the Civil War through the eyes of Killer Angels, met a young wizard named Harry, and a disturbed young girl named Carrie.  From all of them I absorbed major life lessons - the importance of being true to yourself, what real courage was and is, the concept of honor, dignity and truth, the need to reach beyond yourself, to throw off the surly bonds of earth and reach for the stars. All of that informs my work. I write as eclectically as I read.