I'm very critical of crime novels that use gratuitous violence to shock readers when it isn't necessary. If that's all you have to offer as a writer, perhaps you're in the wrong job.

I wasn't always a novelist. I began my writing career as a journalist, working on an afternoon newspaper in Sydney, Australia, doing the crime beat and court reporting. Having grown up in a small country town, I felt as though I had nothing to write about.

In the mid-nineties, I quit my job as a senior feature writer at 'The Mail' on Sunday in the U.K. and became a 'ghost writer,' collaborating with politicians, pop stars, psychologists, soldiers and sporting legends who needed help in penning their autobiographies.

Journalism took me around the world. I worked in London for ten years and reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the troubles in Northern Ireland, and the first Gulf War.

If we do not provide education for every single American, we are consigning those without an education to second-class status.

I was a Social Science major in college, with an emphasis in secondary education. I took as many courses on the American colonial era and westward expansion as I could. This turned out to be wonderful preparation for writing fantasy novels.

Our nation has slashed budgets for education, job training, economic development, and drug treatment while investing billions in prisons and militarized police. A penal system unprecedented in world history has been born. Millions have been arrested and stripped of basic civil and human rights.

I don't say I was 'proceeding down a thoroughfare;' I say I 'walked down the road'. I don't say I 'passed a hallowed institute of learning;' I say I 'passed a school'.