My job isn't to preach to people, it's to entertain them. I like letting the characters speak for themselves.

As a Southerner, I love obstacles for my characters.

There aren't many people in the world who can say that they are doing the job they've wanted to do since childhood, so in that regard, I feel incredibly fortunate.

The most important lesson I have learned from spending years talking to law enforcement officers is that the vast majority of them really want to do a good job. They have a physical need to do a good job. And yet, we don't give them the resources that would help them.

It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.

I'm over the word 'like' in conversation, and 'you know' seems to be the placeholder of choice, but when I'm writing dialogue, I tend to use those phrases because that's how people talk.