Back in Star Time, I planted a few seeds that meant little or nothing to that story, but provided the framework for this one. In one, the Australian scientist that was interested in genetic engineering, after a hundred years, has…

It was plain from the very beginning in Star Time that this saga I was writing had two branches, and it wouldn’t work to combine them in one novel.  No matter that this was hardly the traditional way to write…

As I was writing Star Time, I introduced a couple of young kids, with just a hint as to their future. (Hint was given by a prophet, so it was pretty reliable.) Kingdom of the Hill Country was my first…

As a college student, I wrote a novel in long-hand, in three-ring binders.  There was a genius inventor who fought an aerial battle with aliens using his high-tech car to rescue the girl.  This was even before I could type,…

It would make my life easier if I just wrote one kind of novel — some easily classifiable category.  Many of mine fit my Small Towns, Big Ideas label, but some do not.  This is one. Chicago isn’t a small…

My wife is a workaholic.  She always schedules more than a reasonable person can accomplish. So one idle science-fictiony thought caught in her brain and she mentioned it over and over for years — the idea of a room where…

In 2009, I had an opportunity for a big Canada trip, starting in Saskatchewan and traveling east, stopping in Montreal for the Worldcon where I picked up my Golden Duck award for Lighter Than Air. After that, we kept going…

Pixie Dust was actually written earlier than my young adult novels that I began to market under the Small Towns, Big Ideas umbrella, but it shares some of the same ideas. When I re-read the book after letting it sit…

I love to travel, and long lonely roads are sometimes the best times to think about stories and to plug ideas together.  One long drive on I-70 through the empty miles of Utah, the only distractions were the very infrequent…