That Dark Edge follows an exoethnologist as she investigates the culture of an alien species and faces rising tensions that result from linguistic and social differences. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I’ve always been interested in anthropology, curious and fascinated by the interactions between the sophisticated cultures with those defined as less so. Two dear friends, both anthropologists, who joined the Peace Corps told me a true story that happened when such scholars were not allowed to interfere with the society they observed. The anthropologists watched as parents in a very poor community walled up a daughter so she would starve because she kept asking for food. The horror of this still makes my heart stop. The sharp difference in perspective burned an uncomfortable truth inside me, between those from abundant certainty and those living with unavoidable grim survival. I think I just wanted to “fix” this even if I couldn’t change the reality of it.

The science inserted in the fiction, I felt, was well-balanced. How did you manage to keep it grounded while still providing the fantastic edge science fiction stories usually provide?

We take our own everyday things like indoor plumbing, electricity, flying planes, etc. for granted without considering how they work (unless they break down). The humans, especially those who have gone off-planet, accept their technological advantages as part of the world they know. I also try very hard to make any advanced tech plausible from what we know or what we can extrapolate from science–I want it to be feasible rather than too fantastic, even if fantastic is more fun.

What experience in your life has had the biggest impact on your writing?

I was always telling stories. I made little people out of paper, pipe cleaners, and ice cream sticks from as early as six years old. My mom, who was often the audience for my “stories” told me one day: “You have quite an imagination. Why don’t you write that down?” I was eleven. And that was it. Whatever else I dreamed of being, I knew from that day I wanted to be a writer. Everything I experience, bad and good, is fuel for that creative fire.

Can we look forward to a follow-up to That Dark Edge? What are you currently working on?

Yes. I’m currently working diligently on the sequel to That Dark Edge, called Unbound We Arrive. We follow Hedda Tocq and her companions through world-shaking reactions and consequences, some painful, some wondrous, some unfolding in ways we can only imagine.

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