I wrote my senior essay on the Santa Fe Writer's Colony and my dissertation on sacred landscapes - the Grand Canyon, the Dakota Badlands. As a setting, I love the West. I just love that western landscape.

Mysteries always have the potential for interesting connections between the elements. I'm also most interested in the relationship between the characters. As in 'Masterpiece,' I'm trying to create characters who not only are solving a mystery but are solving the riddle of their own personal relationships.

The funny thing is, though I write mysteries, it is the one genre in adult fiction I never read. I read Nancy Drew, of course, when I was a kid, but I think the real appeal is as a writer because I'm drawn to puzzly, complicated plots.

I had an Edinburgh, middle-class childhood and a public school education.

Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, I became an elementary teacher and worked with second and fourth graders.

Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two.

Education is the foundation for all we do in life, it shapes who we are and what we aspire to be. Creativity fuels innovation, and it's what all states should strive to instill in the next generations.