I do like to write about characters who aren't just starting out, who have had adventures before, who have had a past they aren't that happy looking back on.

I think it's also safe to say genre TV and movies were a big influence - the first stories I ever tried to write were Godzilla fan fiction when I was in elementary school, complete with elaborate maps of Monster Island made with multiple sheets of typing paper and nearly six feet wide. I kind of wish I still had those.

I know that by the time I was in middle school, Andre Norton was definitely my favorite author.

The public library my parents took me to in Fort Worth had the children's section next to the SF/F section, so I was reading adult SF/F at a very young age.

My votes against the education bill and my votes against the Medicare bill got huge play at home.

My mother and father are exceptionally proud Indians. They always wanted to contribute, to give back philanthropically, especially in the field of education.

In 1933, the Nazis came to power and the more systematic persecution of the Jews followed quickly. Laws were enacted which excluded Jewish children from higher education in public schools.

I call for a march from exploitation to education, from poverty to shared prosperity, a march from slavery to liberty, and a march from violence to peace.