What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write A Skeleton in Bone Creek?
The series centering on Nash, being a First Nation female, came from my growing up two blocks from Paiute Reservation land in the tiny town of Bishop, California. Her being FBI and attached to the Special Operation as a Special Investigator allowed a wider map to be her jurisdiction, or even to travel to countries outside her jurisdiction.
Growing up in a small town inspired this first book in the series, A Skeleton in Bone Creek. The skeletons aren’t always in a creek or buried, and usually don’t stay quietly in people’s closets. As much as the skeletons are about the dead, they are a metaphor for the less than pretty of a town. They also represent the core of our being, and in Nash’s case, her internal conflict with her mystically seeing things the way her mother had.
If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of A Skeleton in Bone Creek, what would they be?
The theme song from Jaws is somehow fitting.
What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?
Mystery Thriller with international overtones is probably the broad paintbrush of what is on my TBR pile.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
Currently, they are text books. The top five are structures for writing, and also writing screen plays.
What scene in your book was your favorite to write?
Probably the series of small scene parts dealing with Nash getting comfortable with the dog, Powder. The dog’s rejection of her using her sister’s cheap shampoo is pivotal to Nash’s accepting her heritage and who she is.
Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)
My computer is in our basement. There is a single desk light turned away from me, so essentially I’m writing in the dark. My wife refers to it as the Baer Cave.
Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?
Inside every person, there is a story. But inside that story is a story of how that story came to be. That story within a story, is the more fascinating story to tell.
If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?
How to order the next book.
But seriously, I don’t get to choose what readers get from my books. I have readers who point out information, character points, or wisdoms from books I wrote ten years ago. Stuff I thought was throw-away, and yet, it was the piece they found to be the take-away. But for me, it is that the diversity I write is the diversity that surrounds us; in people, as well as animals.
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