“Who was your first literary inspiration, the one author who inspired you to be an author?” — C.C.

Thanks for the question, C.C.

Technically, I was inspired to write while I was in preschool, and we weren’t reading great authors then (ha!)… mostly Dick and Jane.

I read the usual kidlit that a girl might enjoy (highlights are the Betsy-Tacy series, with artwork I still adore, and Nancy Drew mysteries, which I gobbled up like the snacks they were). Then, when I was age 9, I received a copy of The Vintage Bradbury for Christmas. I dove in right away and read the whole thing a couple of times that year (and multiple times since then… I still have that copy).

The one story that lit me up was “The Veldt.” Hardly children’s literature, it’s a story about virtual reality that basically invites the carnage of a safari scene into a children’s nursery where the kids are playing, unsupervised. The motifs this story introduced to me (body and tech horror, smart homes, cautionary tales, simulations, dystopia, social commentary, futurism) won me over. To this day I am a huge fan of stories that reveal the dark sides of human nature and the material/virtual worlds.

After that, I began to read the science fiction castoffs left around the house by my dad and big brother, titles which also had elements of fantasy and or horror.

A year later (1975), my friend Jeena Jones introduced me to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy and this was also especially influential and inspiring to me as a writer. I’ve read these all at least five times now.